Findings

1. The labor and birthing effects on women attending antenatal education may include less false labor admissions, more partner involvement, and less anxiety but more labor interventions.
2. Several studies found increased labor and birth interventions such as induction of labor and epidural use.
3. There is contradictory evidence on the effect of antenatal education on mode of birth.

Findings

1. All levels of intervention were associated with increases in maternal well-being for participants with typically developing children.
2. Mothers of toddlers with behavior problems, however, did not benefit from receiving only the booklet but significantly benefitted from receiving either the face-to-face or web-based interventions. 

Limitations 

• Maternal reports were used as the sole source of mothers’ and toddlers’ adjustment.
• Did not include assessments of actual parenting behaviors or other potential mediational variables (e.g., parental involvement with pro-social others or supportive activities; Burstein, et al. 2006)
• The limited sample size restricted statistical power, and therefore there was no control for the effects of all possible factors (e.g., race, gender of child, rather involvement) that may have been indirectly related to socioemotional adjustment and parenting.
• Use of a single facilitator for in-person groups and no formal record of fidelity checks 

Findings

1. No significant differences in psychosocial function using intention-to-treat models; yet, women in the top tertile of psychosocial stress at study entry did benefit from integrated group care.
2. High-stress women randomly assigned to CenteringPregnancy Plus (CP+) reported significantly increased self-esteem, decreased stress, and decreased social conflict in the third trimester of pregnancy. Social conflict and depression were significantly lower one year postpartum. CP+ improved psychosocial outcomes for high-stress women.
3. Most notably, the strongest finding for CP+ women was the reduction in social conflict. This effect is probably attributed to the heavy emphasis in CP+ on developing effective communication and negotiation skills.

Limitations  

• Overall effects of the intervention were not found using intention-to-treat analysis, though important subgroup differences were identified. In terms of the potency of the intervention, it may be necessary to strengthen the psychosocial components of CP+ in order to improve psychosocial functioning for everyone and not just those with high initial levels of stress.
• High-risk sample: Sample represents a relatively restricted group of young, ethnic minority women of low socioeconomic status who attend urban hospital clinics for prenatal care. This is a group at highest risk of adverse perinatal and psychosocial outcomes and therefore may be most in need of substantive clinical intervention to reduce risk.
• Replication with diverse patient populations and within diverse clinical settings is essential to ensure reliability, generalizability, and clinical effectiveness.

Findings

1. Mothers who perceived stronger social support from their partners mid-pregnancy had lower emotional distress postpartum after controlling for their distress in early pregnancy, and their infants were reported to be less distressed in response to novelty.
2. Partner support mediated the effects of mothers’ interpersonal security and relationship satisfaction on maternal and infant outcomes.
3. A high-quality, supportive partner relationship during pregnancy may contribute to improved maternal and infant well-being postpartum, indicating a potential role for partner relationships in mental health interventions, with possible  benefits for infants as well.

Limitations

• Self report: Future investigations may include data from both partners and additional temperament measures.
• Depression and anxiety measures were not diagnostic tools.

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Findings

1. Longer duration of breastfeeding was associated with more maternal sensitive responsiveness, more attachment security and less attachment disorganization.
2. Longer duration of breastfeeding was not related to the risk of insecure-avoidant or insecure-resistant versus secure attachment classification but was predictive of a lower risk of disorganized versus secure attachment classification.
3. Maternal sensitive responsiveness did not mediate the associations.
4. Maternal oxytocin receptor genotype was not a significant moderator.
5. Breastfeeding initiation: About 10% of the mothers never initiated breastfeeding, about 22% started breastfeeding but stopped before the child was 2 months old, 36% continued beyond the second month but stopped before the child was 6 months old and 31% of the participating mothers breastfed their child for at least 6 months.
6. When the infant was 2 months old, 35% of the mothers were bottle-feeding the child, 18% were combining bottle-feeding and breastfeeding, and 47% exclusively breastfed.
7. Attachment classification distributions: 49.8% secure, 13.2% insecure-avoidant, 14.7% insecure-resistant and 22.4% disorganized.

Limitations

• Inability to make inferences about the causality of the associations of breastfeeding duration with maternal sensitive responsiveness, attachment security and attachment disorganization found in this study. For example, it may be that more sensitive women are more likely to breastfeed their child (and to continue breastfeeding to an older age) than less sensitive women. It has also been suggested that maternal personality characteristics account for the association between breastfeeding duration and maternal sensitivity, affecting both the decision to breastfeed (and continue to breastfeed) and maternal behavior toward the child. The continuation of breastfeeding may also be influenced by external factors, such as policy regarding maternity leave.
• This study population was relatively homogeneous: Only white Dutch women and children were eligible for this study, socioeconomic status (SES) was relatively high and the level of other risk factors, such as parental psychopathology, was low. This reduces the effect of potential confounders but may limit the generalizability of our results to Western low-risk populations.
• Even in dyads who never breastfed, maternal sensitive responsiveness was high and attachment disorganization scores were well below the clinical cutoff of 5. Categorical analysis revealed no differences in attachment classification. These results concur with earlier findings that although breastfeeding predicted better interactions between mothers and their 1-year-olds, bottle-feeding did not harm the infant-mother relationship.
• It cannot be concluded that there was a mediating role of maternal sensitivity between breastfeeding duration and attachment security from the findings, because maternal sensitivity was not related to attachment security in this study. This lack of an association between maternal sensitive responsiveness and attachment security was unexpected but not inconsistent with earlier findings. The somewhat unusual setting of the assessments used in this study (infant sitting on the mother’s lap) might partly explain the lack of an association.

Findings

1. Child emotional eating was significantly negatively correlated with authoritative parenting style and family affective responsiveness, and significantly positively correlated with minimizing response.
2. Minimizing and punitive responses were significantly negatively correlated with affective responsiveness and involvement and with authoritative parenting style, and these response types were positively correlated with authoritarian and permissive parenting styles.
3. Affective responsiveness and involvement were significantly related to authoritative parenting style and significantly negatively related to authoritarian and permissive parenting styles.
4. Warmth and support and reasoning/induction were significantly correlated with child emotional eating but autonomy-granting was not.
5. Non-reasoning, punitive responses were related to child emotional eating but physical coercion and verbal hostility were not.

Limitations

• Lack of father data and a cross-sectional design prevents the ability to draw conclusions or directions from the data.
• The DEBQ has not had significant use with young children and is a self-report measure; therefore, caution should be used when interpreting the results.

Findings

1. Low maternal sensitivity at 15, 24 and 36 months was associated with increased odds of adolescent obesity.
2. Insecure attachment was associated with increased odds of adolescent obesity at 24 months but not at 15 months and 36 months.
3. At 24 and 36 months, the combination of low maternal sensitivity and insecure attachment was associated with greater odds of adolescent obesity than was either on their own.

Limitations

• Causality cannot be determined by observational studies.
• Measure of maternal obesity was only assessed when the children were teenagers but not when they were younger.
• Cannot exclude the possibility of selection bias

Findings

1. The research already done on responsive feeding (RF) is promising but extremely weak due to wide variety in study design and lack of consistency among definitions of RF.
2. None of the studies isolated for effects of RF and therefore cannot be utilized to reach conclusions on the effects of responsive feeding to child outcomes. Longitudinal studies and studies that isolate for the effects of RF are needed.

Limitations

• This paper is limited in its ability to generalize due to the vast variety of definitions utilized in the individual studies of RF.
• The measures and variables looked at varied widely from study to study, making it difficult to determine any cross-study comparisons.

Findings

1. Children benefit from responsive parenting and are likely to benefit from a responsive feeding environment, where their internal signals of hunger and satiety are recognized and met with prompt, emotionally supportive, contingent and developmentally appropriate responses.
2. The short-term benefits of responsive feeding are expected to be children’s increasing attention to internal signals of hunger and satiety and to eating in a competent and responsible manner.
3. The long-term benefits of responsive parenting are enhanced psychosocial, cognitive and language competence, and the long-term benefits of responsive feeding are likely to include healthy nutrition and growth.
4. Research is needed to examine the short- and long-term impact of responsive feeding on children’s growth and development. 

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Findings

1. In the first postpartum month, breastfeeding mothers showed greater activations in the superior frontal gyrus, insula, precuneus, striatum and amygdala while listening to their own baby-cry as compared to formula-feeding mothers.
2. For both breastfeeding and formula-feeding mothers, greater activations in the right superior frontal gyrus and amygdala were associated with higher maternal sensitivity at three to four months postpartum.
3. Results suggest links between breastfeeding and greater response to infant cues in brain regions implicated in maternal-infant bonding and empathy during the early postpartum. Such brain activations may facilitate greater maternal sensitivity as infants enter their social world.
4. First evidence using brain imaging that breastfeeding at the first month postpartum has a significant link to both enhanced maternal brain responses to infant stimuli and maternal behaviors.

Limitations

• Small sample 
• Although infant cries from the two groups and the control infant cry were rated as having a similar level of emotional intensity by independent raters, because mothers selected samples of their own babies' cries by themselves, it is possible that one group of mothers may have selected cry samples that they perceived as being more emotionally salient.
• No measure for maternal sensitivity at two to four weeks postpartum when the brain responses to infant stimuli were assessed
• Because factors related to a mother’s decision to breastfeed may also be associated with these parental outcomes, future research is needed to understand whether breastfeeding moderates the relationship between a mother’s decision to breastfeed and neurological responses to her infant with pre- and post-intervention studies.
• More research is also required to examine whether the increase in brain response related to breastfeeding and the significant associations between early maternal brain responses and later parenting behaviors influence the infant’s cognitive, social and emotional development.

Findings

1. Mothers' emotional and cognitive responses to infant distress predicted significant variation in maternal sensitivity to distress independently of one another and in conjunction with observed infant distress.
2. Mothers' emotional goals were the most consistent predictors of sensitivity to distress, followed by their emotional reactions to distress.
3. Mothers' prenatal negative emotions in response to crying were related to sensitivity to distress cues.
4. Both prenatal and postnatal negative emotions moderated the link between observed infant distress and total sensitivity.
5. Postnatal empathy, but not prenatal empathy, was positively associated with sensitivity to distress.
6. Accurate detection of the unfamiliar infants’ distress during the prenatal period was positively related to sensitivity to distress.
7. Efficacy was the only predictor that was unrelated to sensitivity as a main effect or in conjunction with infant temperament.

Limitations

• The majority of the participants in this study were high-functioning, non-minority adults and all were first-time mothers.
• The duration of infant distress was relatively brief, and some infants did not become distressed.
• Due to small sample size, infant-oriented and mother-oriented goals were combined even though they did not correlate significantly.

Findings

1. Amount of (skin-to-skin contant) SSC in infants’ first 24 hours correlated with amount of SSC through the first month.
2. Amount of SSC in infants’ first 24 hours independently accounted for maternal sensitivity on both measures, indicating that early mother-infant SSC predicted subsequent maternal sensitivity.

Limitations

• Small sample size: The number of dyads followed was small, and the age range of the infants at the time of the follow-up visit was large. The significant results obtained with the small sample suggest that the findings are robust; yet, whether early mother-infant SSC would be associated with later maternal sensitivity in a larger sample or with a more restricted age range of infants remains to be tested.
• Maternal report: With the exception of the amount of SSC  documented in hospital records during the infants’ first few days of life, the amount of SSC the mothers provided was collected from mothers’ reports at the time of the follow-up visits; thus, these amounts were subject to subjective recall. However, mothers’ reports of the SSC provided during the infants’ first few days corroborated with the amount reported in hospital records, suggesting that the mothers’ memories were accurate.
• Low generalizability: The dyads were from a high-risk population, which limits how the results can be generalized to other populations.

Findings

1. Ethnic minority parents display significantly lower levels of sensitivity to their young children than do majority families.
2. The evidence points toward a central role of social and economic stress in sensitivity differences between majority and minority groups.
3. There is clear evidence for substantial covariation between minority status and low (socioeconomic status) SES in predicting lower parental sensitivity.
4. When controlled for SES, the link between minority status and sensitivity disappears.
5. Paternal sensitivity is related to positive social outcomes in ethnic minorities.
6. There is evidence that positive involvement by fathers and high mother-father relationship quality may buffer against the negative effects of maternal risk.

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Arias, A. (2012). Emotional Availability of Low-income Mothers and Their Children: Association with Salivary Cortisol.

Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., van IJzendoorn, M. H., Riem, M. M., Tops, M., & Alink, L. R. (2012). Oxytocin decreases handgrip force in reaction to infant crying in females without harsh parenting experiences. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 7(8), 951-957.

Beijersbergen, M. D., Juffer, F., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2012). Remaining or becoming secure: Parental sensitive support predicts attachment continuity from infancy to adolescence in a longitudinal adoption study. Developmental Psychology, 48(5), 1277.

Bernier, A., Carlson, S. M., & Whipple, N. (2010). From External Regulation to Self-Regulation: Early Parenting Precursors of Young Children’s Executive Functioning. Child Development, 81(1), 326-339.

Bigelow, A. E., MacLean, K., Proctor, J., Myatt, T., Gillis, R., & Power, M. (2010). Maternal sensitivity throughout infancy: Continuity and relation to attachment security. Infant Behavior and Development, 33(1), 50-60.

Bornstein, M. H., Suwalsky, J. T., & Breakstone, D. A. (2012). Emotional relationships between mothers and infants: Knowns, unknowns, and unknown unknowns. Development and Psychopathology, 24(1), 113.

Bornstein, M. H., Suwalsky, J. T., Putnick, D. L., Gini, M., Venuti, P., de Falco, S., ... & de Galperín, C. Z. (2010). Developmental continuity and stability of emotional availability in the family: Two ages and two genders in child-mother dyads from two regions in three countries. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 34(5), 385-397.

Braungart-Rieker, J. M., Hill-Soderlund, A. L., & Karrass, J. (2010). Fear and anger reactivity trajectories from 4 to 16 months: The roles of temperament, regulation, and maternal sensitivity. Developmental Psychology, 46(4), 791-804.

Chaudhuri, J. H., Easterbrooks, M. A., & Davis, C. R. (2009). The relation between emotional availability and parenting style: Cultural and economic factors in a diverse sample of young mothers. Parenting: Science and Practice, 9(3-4), 277-299.

Chen, E., Miller, G. E., Kobor, M. S., & Cole, S. W. (2010). Maternal warmth buffers the effects of low early-life socioeconomic status on pro-inflammatory signaling in adulthood. Molecular Psychiatry, 16(7), 729-737.

Conradt, E., & Ablow, J. (2010). Infant physiological response to the still-face paradigm: contributions of maternal sensitivity and infants’ early regulatory behavior. Infant Behavior and Development, 33(3), 251-265.

Demers, I., Bernier, A., Tarabulsy, G. M., & Provost, M. A. (2010). Mind-mindedness in adult and adolescent mothers: Relations to maternal sensitivity and infant attachment. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 34(6), 529-537.

Easterbrooks, M., Bureau, J. F., & Lyons-Ruth, K. (2012). Developmental correlates and predictors of emotional availability in mother-child interaction: A longitudinal study from infancy to middle childhood. Development and Psychopathology, 24(01), 65-78.

Graziano, P. A., Calkins, S. D., & Keane, S. P. (2011). Sustained attention development during the toddlerhood to preschool period: associations with toddlers' emotion regulation strategies and maternal behaviour. Infant and Child Development, 20(6), 389-408.

Güngör, D., & Bornstein, M. H. (2010). Culture-general and-specific associations of attachment avoidance and anxiety with perceived parental warmth and psychological control among Turk and Belgian adolescents. Journal of Adolescence, 33(5), 593-602.

Haltigan, J. D., Leerkes, E. M., Burney, R. V., O’Brien, M., Supple, A. J., & Calkins, S. D. (2012). The Infant Crying Questionnaire: Initial factor structure and validation. Infant Behavior and Development, 35(4), 876-883.

Henning, A., & Striano, T. (2011). Infant and Maternal Sensitivity to Interpersonal Timing. Child Development, 82(3), 916-931.

Joosen, K. J., Mesman, J., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2012). Maternal sensitivity to infants in various settings predicts harsh discipline in toddlerhood. Attachment & Human Development, 14(2), 101-117.

Kersten, L. E., Hosman, C. M. H., Riksen-Walraven, J. M. A., Doesum, K. V., & Hoefnagels, C. C. J. (2011). Which preventive interventions effectively enhance depressed mothers' sensitivity? A meta-analysis.

Leerkes, E. M. (2011). Maternal sensitivity during distressing tasks: A unique predictor of attachment security. Infant Behavior and Development, 34(3), 443-446.

Leerkes, E. M., Blankson, A. N., & O’Brien, M. (2009). Differential Effects of Maternal Sensitivity to Infant Distress and Nondistress on Social-Emotional Functioning. Child Development, 80(3), 762-775.

Leerkes, E. M., Weaver, J. M., & O'Brien, M. (2012). Differentiating maternal sensitivity to infant distress and non-distress. Parenting, 12(2-3), 175-184.

Luijk, M. P., Roisman, G. I., Haltigan, J. D., Tiemeier, H., Booth-LaForce, C., van IJzendoorn, M. H., ... & Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J. (2011). Dopaminergic, serotonergic, and oxytonergic candidate genes associated with infant attachment security and disorganization? In search of main and interaction effects. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 52(12), 1295-1307.

Lundy, B. L., & Skeel, M. M. (2010). Decreased empathic sensitivity for distressed infants in neurotic adults: The mediating role of remembered parental rejection. Motivation and Emotion, 34(4), 407-417.

Lupien, S. J., Parent, S., Evans, A. C., Tremblay, R. E., Zelazo, P. D., Corbo, V., ... & Séguin, J. R. (2011). Larger amygdala but no change in hippocampal volume in 10-year-old children exposed to maternal depressive symptomatology since birth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(34), 14324-14329.

McElwain, N. L., Booth-LaForce, C., & Wu, X. (2011). Infant-Mother Attachment and Children's Friendship Quality: Maternal Mental-State Talk as an Intervening Mechanism. Developmental Psychology, 47(5), 1295.

Meins, E. (1997). Security of attachment and maternal tutoring strategies: Interaction within the zone of proximal development. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 15(2), 129-144.

Mesman, J., Oster, H., & Camras, L. (2012). Parental sensitivity to infant distress: what do discrete negative emotions have to do with it?. Attachment & Human Development, 14(4), 337-348.

Mileva‐Seitz, V., Kennedy, J., Atkinson, L., Steiner, M., Levitan, R., Matthews, S. G., ... & Fleming, A. S. (2011). Serotonin transporter allelic variation in mothers predicts maternal sensitivity, behavior and attitudes toward 6-month-old infants. Genes, Brain and Behavior, 10(3), 325-333.

Moss, E., Dubois-Comtois, K., Cyr, C., Tarabulsy, G. M., St-Laurent, D., & Bernier, A. (2011). Efficacy of a home-visiting intervention aimed at improving maternal sensitivity, child attachment, and behavioral outcomes for maltreated children: A randomized control trial. Development and Psychopathology, 23(1), 195.

Musser, E. D., Ablow, J. C., & Measelle, J. R. (2012). Predicting maternal sensitivity: The roles of postnatal depressive symptoms and parasympathetic dysregulation. Infant Mental Health Journal, 33(4), 350-359.

Naber, F., van IJzendoorn, M. H., Deschamps, P., van Engeland, H., & Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J. (2010). Intranasal oxytocin increases fathers’ observed responsiveness during play with their children: a double-blind within-subject experiment. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 35(10), 1583-1586.

Out, D., Pieper, S., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., Zeskind, P. S., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2010). Intended sensitive and harsh caregiving responses to infant crying: the role of cry pitch and perceived urgency in an adult twin sample. Child Abuse & Neglect, 34(11), 863-873.

Page, M., Wilhelm, M. S., Gamble, W. C., & Card, N. A. (2010). A comparison of maternal sensitivity and verbal stimulation as unique predictors of infant social-emotional and cognitive development. Infant Behavior and Development, 33(1), 101-110.

Parker, A. C. (2012). A systematic investigation of affect attunement and its link to a global measure of maternal sensitivity (Doctoral dissertation, Texas Tech University).

Riem, M. M., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., Pieper, S., Tops, M., Boksem, M. A., Vermeiren, R. R., ... & Rombouts, S. A. (2011). Oxytocin modulates amygdala, insula, and inferior frontal gyrus responses to infant crying: a randomized controlled trial. Biological Psychiatry, 70(3), 291-297.

Ruttle, P. L., Serbin, L. A., Stack, D. M., Schwartzman, A. E., & Shirtcliff, E. A. (2011). Adrenocortical attunement in mother-child dyads: Importance of  situational and behavioral characteristics. Biological Psychology, 88(1), 104-111.

Spangler, G., Maier, U., Geserick, B., & von Wahlert, A. (2010). The influence of attachment representation on parental perception and interpretation of infant emotions: A multilevel approach. Developmental Psychobiology, 52(5), 411-423.

Stack, D. M., Serbin, L. A., Girouard, N., Enns, L. N., Bentley, V., Ledingham, J. E., & Schwartzman, A. E. (2012). The quality of the mother–child relationship in high-risk dyads: Application of the Emotional Availability Scales in an intergenerational, longitudinal study. Development and Psychopathology, 24(01), 93-105.

Sturge-Apple, M. L., Davies, P. T., & Cummings, E. M. (2010). Typologies of family functioning and children’s adjustment during the early school years. Child Development, 81(4), 1320-1335.

van IJzendoorn, M. H., & Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J. (2012). Differential Susceptibility Experiments: Going beyond Correlational Evidence—Comment on beyond Mental Health, Differential Susceptibility Articles. Developmental Psychology, 48(3), 769-774.

Wade, S. L., Cassedy, A., Walz, N. C., Taylor, H. G., Stancin, T., & Yeates, K. O. (2011). The relationship of parental warm responsiveness and negativity to emerging behavior problems following traumatic brain injury in young children. Developmental Psychology, 47(1), 119-133.

Whipple, N., Bernier, A., & Mageau, G. A. (2011). A dimensional approach to maternal attachment state of mind: Relations to maternal sensitivity and maternal autonomy support. Developmental Psychology, 47(2), 396.

Whipple, N., Bernier, A., & Mageau, G. A. (2011). Broadening the Study of Infant Security of Attachment: Maternal Autonomy-support in the Context of Infant Exploration. Social Development, 20(1), 17-32.

White, R., & Renk, K. (2012). Externalizing behavior problems during adolescence: An ecological perspective. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 21(1), 158-171.

Yang, Z., & Laroche, M. (2011). Parental responsiveness and adolescent susceptibility to peer influence: A cross-cultural investigation. Journal of Business Research, 64(9), 979-987.

Findings

1. Mothers provided diverse tactile stimulation to their infants, varying from passive touch to active and stimulating behaviors.
2. The amount and type of touch that mothers provided changed with the infant’s age and the interaction context.
3. Infant’s age influenced duration and types of touch mothers utilized.
4. Across age, a decrease in nurturing touch, patting and stroking was observed.
5. As the infants aged, there was an increase in tickling and static touch.

Limitations

• Small sample size
• Mother-infant interaction was only seen in two contexts and for five-minute periods.

Findings

1. Mother/infant skin-to-skin contact lessened the mother’s self-reported depressive symptoms and physiological stress in the first postpartum weeks.
2. At the one-week visit, the mothers in the skin-to-skin contact group scored significantly lower on the depression scales than the control group. This trend continued at the one-month visit, but the difference was smaller.
3. By the two- and three-month visits, there were no differences in the two groups' scores on the depression scales.
4. Mothers in the skin-to-skin contact and control groups did not differ from one another in their salivary cortisol level at either of the test intervals.
5. Individually, the mothers in the skin-to-skin contact group saw a significant reduction in their own salivary cortisol levels between the one-week and one-month tests, indicating that skin-to-skin contact significantly reduced physiological stress in the mothers.

Limitations

• Mothers were not randomized into control or skin-to-skin groups. Mothers were assigned to groups based on the hospital they delivered in.
• Study participants were self-selected, choosing whether or not to participate in the study at the time of their children’s births.
• There were more mothers in the control group than the skin-to-skin group, and there was a greater number of mothers in the skin-to-skin group that did not meet the criteria for inclusion in the skin-to-skin group.
• Mothers in the study were from a homogeneous rural community. This limits the ability to generalize these results to more diverse or high-risk populations.
• There was a difference in maternal age between the control group and the skin-to-skin contact group.
• Skin-to-skin contact was based on mother’s report.
• No test of bidirectional influences in the dyad

Findings

1. Mothers and fathers show similar baseline levels of plasma and salivary oxytocin (OT).
2. Plasma and salivary OT are inter-related.
3. OT is individually stable across observations.
4. Maternal and paternal OT is differentially related to affectionate and stimulatory contact.
5. OT increases in high-affectionate contact mothers following mother-infant contact but not in low-affectionate contact mothers.
6. OT increases in high-stimulatory contact fathers following parent-infant contact but not in low-stimulatory contact fathers.

Limitations

• The results do not imply causal relations, and the links may be accounted for by other variables.
• The medium-size correlation between plasma and salivary OT may point to a shared mechanism underlying the functioning of these two peripheral systems.
• Several studies have not found an OT increase following touch; thus, the conditions under which touch does or does not increase OT need further study.

Findings

1. All forms of touch—affectionate, stimulating and instrumental touch—decreased across the first year of life.
2. There was a significant decrease in affectionate and stimulating touch between six and nine months.
3. Results showed that maternal affectionate touch was a significant predictor of dyadic reciprocity; affectionate touch explained unique variance in dyadic reciprocity above and beyond the effects of infant age, gender, birth order or ethnicity.

Limitations

• This was a cross-sectional study rather than longitudinal; therefore the stability of touch behavior in individual dyads was not studied or accounted for.
• Convenience sample
• The study is based on observing only one interaction among the dyads and therefore may not be truly representative of dyad reciprocity.
• Procedural differences in carrying out the study for the different age groups may pose some limitations on general conclusions.

Findings

1. Current research highlights the need for touch for socioemotional and physical development and well-being and the therapeutic benefits of massage.

Anderson, J. G., & Taylor, A. G. (2011). Effects of Healing Touch in Clinical Practice A Systematic Review of Randomized Clinical Trials. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 29(3), 221-228.

Bautista, D. M., & Lumpkin, E. A. (2011). Probing mammalian touch transduction. The Journal of General Physiology, 138(3), 291-301.

Beckes, L., & Coan, J. A. (2011). Social baseline theory: the role of social proximity in emotion and economy of action. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5(12), 976-988.

Bell, C. (2011). The Healing Properties of Touch Associated with Premature Infants and Childhood Development: A Literature Review.

DallaLibera, F., Basoeki, F., Minato, T., Ishiguro, H., & Menegatti, E. (2011, September). Teaching by touching: Interpretation of tactile instructions for motion development. In Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference (pp. 3480-3487). IEEE.

DEd, C. J., & Ikuta, L. (2010). Procedural Pain Management for Neonates Using Nonpharmacological Strategies: Part 2--Mother-Driven Interventions. Trauma.

Eidelman, A. I., Hovars, R., & Kaitz, M. (1994). Comparative tactile behavior of mothers and fathers with their newborn infants. Israel Journal of Medical Sciences, 30(1), 79.

Gordon, I., Voos, A. C., Bennett, R. H., Bolling, D. Z., Pelphrey, K. A., & Kaiser, M. D. (2011). Brain mechanisms for processing affective touch. Human Brain Mapping.

Jung, M. J., & Fouts, H. N. (2011). Multiple caregivers’ touch interactions with young children among the Bofi foragers in Central Africa. International Journal of Psychology, 46(1), 24-32.

Katsurada, E. (2012). The Relationship between Parental Physical Affection and Child Physical Aggression among Japanese Preschoolers. Child Studies in Diverse Contexts, 2(1), 1-10.

Leonard, J. (2011). The Effect of Friendly Touch on Compliance in Preschool-Age Children (Doctoral dissertation, Wesleyan University).

O'Brien, M., & Lynch, H. (2011). Exploring the role of touch in the first year of life: mothers' perspectives of tactile interactions with their infants. The British Journal of Occupational Therapy, 74(3), 129-136.

Oveis, C., Gruber, J., Keltner, D., Stamper, J. L., & Boyce, W. T. (2009). Smile intensity and warm touch as thin slices of child and family affective style. Emotion, 9(4), 544.

Shai, D., & Belsky, J. (2011). When words just won’t do: Introducing parental embodied mentalizing. Child Development Perspectives, 5(3), 173-180.

Findings

1. Exclusively breastfed infants had lower incidence of colic attacks, less severe levels of irritability and longer durations of sleep.
2. The breastfed infants had more fragmented sleep, but the overall duration of wakefulness at night was similar in both groups.
3. No melatonin was measured in formula. Melatonin showed a clear circadian curve in human milk.
4. There was a significant difference in the weight of formula-fed versus breastfed babies, with breastfed babies being significantly lighter.

Limitations

• Sample is convenience, not random, so possible selection bias.
• Potential psychosocial bias, such as socioeconomic status, the family-unit composition, etc.
• Data based on self-report

Findings

1. Currently available data do not allow the identification of what constitutes “normal” sleep duration for children at different ages. We have shown, in an unselected birth cohort, striking interindividual and intraindividual variation that may result in mislabeling of children with potential sleep disorders when their sleep is within the normal range. Clinicians and parents will benefit from more accurate estimations of normal ranges of sleep duration and sleep awakening in relationship to family characteristics.
2. There are specific demographic characteristics associated with sleep duration during childhood.
3. Total sleep time decreased from an average of 13.2 hours at 6 months to 9.8 hours at 11 years.
4. Nighttime sleep duration did not begin to decline until about 9 years.
5. By school age, most children slept through the night, but about half of children between 18 and 42 months were reported by their parents to wake at least once. Ten percent of infants woke more than three times per night, which decreased over time.
6. Average daytime sleep time at 6 months was 2.4 hours. This number was about 1.2 hours for those children who still took daytime naps, and only 2% of children took naps by age 5.
7. Girls consistently slept five to ten minutes longer than boys.
8. Low birthweight and pre-term infants slept longer.
9. Sleep duration was longer for infants of younger mothers and shorter for those of older mothers.
10. Children from lower SES families tended to go to bed later and rise later.
11. Older children from mothers with lower education tended to sleep slightly longer.
12. Children of non-White ethnicity slept less than White children, and their bedtimes were later.
13. Children in families with many other children slept less.

Limitations

• A limitation of most longitudinal studies conducted over several years is that missing data and loss to follow-up are more likely to occur in the most socioeconomically deprived groups. This study is no different, but its large size means that, even with different rates of loss to follow-up, there is sufficient power to investigate effects in small groups. The number of children in the study fell from 11,478 at 6 months to 7,043 at age 11. The children lost to follow-up over time were mostly from lower socioeconomic status (SES) families with more vulnerable infants.
• Sleep duration at all time points was only available for 4,528 participants.
• Parent reporting of children’s sleep tends to overestimate sleep duration.

Findings

1. Statistically significant cross-cultural differences were found in sleep patterns and problems.
2. Children in the predominantly Asian (P-A) countries were reported by their parents to sleep less, have later bedtimes, room-share, and be perceived as having more sleep problems than children in predominantly Caucasian (P-C) countries
3. Parentally defined sleep problems are clearly a universal issue. Parents in all 17 countries/regions reported significant sleep issues. Surprisingly, though, some of the largest country/region-based differences were how sleep was perceived as a problem by parents, ranging from a low of 10.1% in Vietnam to 75.9% in China.
4. Minimal differences were found for daytime sleep (naps), with all children in this study following the same maturational pattern in napping behaviors. These results indicate a strong biological contribution to daytime sleep, rather than what appears to be a stronger culturally based influence to nighttime sleep.

Limitations

• Cohort has an above-average level of education and is primarily urban.
• This Internet survey did not prevent a person from participating more than once and could not ensure whether the participant had a child.
• Parents with concerns about a child’s sleep may have been more likely to participate.
• Participants in Vietnam and Thailand completed the survey by paper and so may have responded differently or have had different characteristics than those who completed the survey on the Internet.
• Parental reports of infant behavior are necessarily limited as they may be inaccurate. Terms such as “sleep problem” may differ across cultures.
• This study is broad in its geographic scope and does not provide information about the vast differences that might exist among subcultures and different ethnicities in a given country or region.

Findings

1. Mothers were significantly more involved in putting the infant to sleep than fathers.
2. Breastfeeding was related to more frequent night-wakings, later sleep onset and less paternal involvement at bedtime.
3. Higher involvement of fathers at one month predicted a lower number of infant night-wakings at 6 months.
4. Higher paternal involvement in infant child care at 1 and 6 months was associated with shorter total sleep time at 6 months.
5. Higher paternal involvement in infant child care at 6 months was associated with later sleep onset.
6. There were no significant correlations between paternal involvement at bedtime and infant sleep. 

Limitations

• The parents in the study represented an upper-middle class socioeconomic status in Israel, limiting the generalization of these findings.
• All of the participants adopted solitary sleep arrangements.

Findings

1. Sleep patterns show the following developmental trends for sleep: Duration decreases from 0 to 12 years, number of night-wakings decreases from 0 to 2 years, longest sleep period increases from 0 to 2 years, and number of daytime naps decreases up to age 2.
2. Sleep duration is the most commonly reported sleep variable. It has a wide range in infancy with the greatest rate of change occurring within the first 6 months of life.
3. Predominantly Asian countries report less sleep duration than non-Asian countries.
4. A clear omission from nearly all the infant studies is a breakdown of breastfeeding or bottle-feeding, well known to influence sleep patterns.
5. There are several aspects of sleep that have limited documentation: normal sleep patterns in the toddler age group, gender and ethnic differences, and weekday versus weekend differences across all age groups.
6. Studies publishing information on sleep patterns should present numerical data with measures of central tendency and variability so data can be incorporated into meta-analysis.

Limitations

• The findings of this review need to be validated against parental reports matched to objective measures of the same sleep variables.
• More prospective, large-scale longitudinal studies, rather than cross-sectional studies, are required to provide richer sources of data to document developmental patterns of sleep.
• Research around cultural practices influencing sleep development is needed to provide culture-specific data.
• The gap in the literature around the toddler age group suggests this age needs to be targeted to better document normal sleep patterns before children’s daytime routine is changed to fit school schedules.
• The significance of the lower and upper limits of our data as cut-offs for problematic sleep need to be assessed for clinical application.

Findings

1. The two groups of children identified in this study appear to represent meaningful and distinct longitudinal patterns with regard to the developmental course of sleep.
2. Not only were the patterns of sleep awakenings empirically distinctive, but membership in the groups was predictable from child and family characteristics.
3. On average, the children who were “becoming sleepers” (defined by more frequent night awakenings), compared with “sleepers” (defined by little evidence of elevated sleep awakenings at any point from 6 months to 3 years), were more likely to be male, be breastfed, have a more difficult temperament, come from a large family, have a depressed mother, have a mother without a spouse or partner and/or be in child care for fewer hours.
4. Most of these differences resolved at 18 months.

Limitations

• Reliance on maternal report
• Infants with many perceived awakenings may be perceived as having difficult temperaments.
• Restricted sample: All infants were healthy at birth, and there were no twins, low birth-weight or premature infants.
• Correlational study

Of Particular Interest

Price, A. M., Wake, M., Ukoumunne, O. C., & Hiscock, H. (2012). Five-year follow-up of harms and benefits of behavioral infant sleep intervention: Randomized trial. Pediatrics, 130(4), 643-651.

Middlemiss, W., Granger, D. A., Goldberg, W. A., & Nathans, L. (2012). Asynchrony of mother-infant hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity following extinction of infant crying responses induced during the transition to sleep. Early Human Development, 88(4), 227-232.

Gettler, L. T., & McKenna, J. J. (2011). Evolutionary perspectives on mother–infant sleep proximity and breastfeeding in a laboratory setting. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 144(3), 454-462.

Ball, H. L., Moya, E., Fairley, L., Westman, J., Oddie, S., & Wright, J. (2012). Bed-and sofa-sharing practices in a UK biethnic population. Pediatrics, 129(3), e673-e681.

Volpe, L. E., Ball, H. L., & McKenna, J. J. (2012). Nighttime parenting strategies and sleep-related risks to infants. Social Science & Medicine.

Ball, H. L., & Volpe, L. E. (2012). SIDS risk reduction and infant sleep location: moving the discussion forward. Social Science & Medicine.

 _____________________________________________________________

Allen, K. A. (2012). Promoting and Protecting Infant Sleep. Advances in Neonatal Care, 12(5), 288-291.

Anuntaseree, W., Sangsupawanich, P., Osmond, C., Mo-Suwan, L., Vasiknanonte, P., & Choprapawon, C. (2012). Sleep quality in infants with atopic dermatitis: a community-based, birth cohort study. Asian Pacific Journal of Allergy and Immunology, 30(1), 26.

Ball, H. (2012). The latest on bed sharing and breastfeeding. Community Practitioner, 85(1), 29-31.

Beijers, R., Riksen-Walraven, J. M., & de Weerth, C. (2012). Cortisol regulation in 12-month-old human infants: Associations with the infants' early history of breastfeeding and co-sleeping. Stress.

Blumberg, M. S. (2013). Homology, correspondence, and continuity across development: The case of sleep. Developmental Psychobiology, 55(1), 92-100.

Bordeleau, S., Bernier, A., & Carrier, J. (2012). Longitudinal associations between the quality of parent-child interactions and children's sleep at preschool age. Journal of Family Psychology, 26(2), 254.

Bottino, C. J., Rifas-Shiman, S. L., Kleinman, K. P., Oken, E., Redline, S., Gold, D., ... & Taveras, E. M. (2012). The association of urbanicity with infant sleep duration. Health & Place.

Byars, K. C., Yolton, K., Rausch, J., Lanphear, B., & Beebe, D. W. (2012). Prevalence, patterns, and persistence of sleep problems in the first 3 years of life. Pediatrics, 129(2), e276-e284.

Chung-Park, M. S. (2012). Knowledge, opinions, and practices of infant sleep position among parents. Military Medicine, 177(2), 235-239.

de Graag, J. A., Cox, R. F., Hasselman, F., Jansen, J., & de Weerth, C. (2012). Functioning within a relationship: Mother-infant synchrony and infant sleep. Infant Behavior and Development, 35(2), 252.

Demirci, J. R., Braxter, B. J., & Chasens, E. R. (2012). Breastfeeding and short sleep duration in mothers and 6-11-month-old infants. Infant Behavior and Development, 35(4), 884-886.

Ebarhim, A., Babak, G., Alimohammad, A., Shabnam, J., Alireza, A., & Forough, F. (2013). High Prevalence of Sleep Problems in School-and Preschool-aged Children in Tehran: a Population Based Study. Iranian Journal of Pediatrics, 23(1), 45.

El-Sheikh, M., Erath, S. A., & Bagley, E. J. (2012). Parasympathetic nervous system activity and children’s sleep. Journal of Sleep Research.

Galland, B. C., Taylor, B. J., Elder, D. E., & Herbison, P. (2012). Normal sleep patterns in infants and children: a systematic review of observational studies. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 16(3), 213-222.

Giallo, R., D’Esposito, F., Cooklin, A., Mensah, F., Lucas, N., Wade, C., & Nicholson, J. M. (2012). Psychosocial risk factors associated with fathers’ mental health in the postnatal period: results from a population-based study. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 1-11.

Gibson, R., Gander, P., & Elder, D. (2012). Factors differentiating infants identified by parents as problem sleepers, and those that are not. Sleep and Biological Rhythms, 10(1), 46-52.

Goldberg, W. A., Lucas-Thompson, R. G., Germo, G. R., Keller, M. A., Davis, E. P., & Sandman, C. A. (2012). Eye of the beholder? Maternal mental health and the quality of infant sleep. Social Science & Medicine.

Gregory, A. M., & Sadeh, A. (2012). Sleep, emotional and behavioral difficulties in children and adolescents. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 16(2), 129-136.

Gress, J. L., Chambers, A. S., Ong, J. C., Tikotzky, L., Okada, R. L., & Manber, R. (2010). Maternal subjective sleep quality and nighttime infant care. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 28(4), 384-391.

Homer, C., Armari, E., & Fowler, C. (2012). Bed-sharing with infants in a time of SIDS awareness. Neonatal, Paediatric & Child Health Nursing, 15(2), 3.

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Findings

1. Temperament interacted with parenting quality on all three academic outcomes and on two of the five social adjustment outcomes: social skills and work habits.
2. Temperament interacted with child care quality on two social adjustment outcomes: behavior problems and teacher-child conflict.
3. Higher-quality parenting predicted greater reading, vocabulary, work habits, math and social skills for children who scored high as well as low on difficult temperament as infants. These parenting effects were strongest in children with histories of temperamental difficulty.
4. For children with histories of difficult temperament, greater quality of child care predicted fewer problems and less conflict.

Limitations

• Study was not experimental, so all findings cannot be presumed to be causal.

Findings

1. At 4 1/2 years, higher quality care predicted higher levels of pre-academic skills and language, and more exposure to center-type care predicted better language and memory. Early child care quality continues to predict cognitive-academic achievement ten years after the child has left child care.
2. The cognitive academic benefits of child care quality found at 4 1/2 years carried through middle childhood and were associated with adolescent functioning.
3. At 4 1/2 years of age, children who were in child care for more hours a day and had more center-type care showed more externalizing behaviors. This remained true at age 15. Higher hours of care predicted reports by adolescents of greater risk-taking and impulsivity.

Limitations

• Study design is correlational, not experimental; therefore, the analysis was a test of association, not causation.
• It is possible that excluded variables may account for the obtained effects.
• The study was not nationally representative.

Findings

1. Mothers who were characterized by low-quality HOME scores and low maternal sensitivity portrayed their children as having more internalizing and externalizing behavior problems and  showing less pro-social behaviors than children in homes or child care programs in the middle of the quality distribution when their children were also in low-quality child care.
2. The mothers' ratings of behavior problems did not differ from the reference group when the children were experiencing low-quality home care and were in high-quality child care.
3. Caregivers reported fewer externalizing behaviors for children who experienced a home environment categorized as high quality regardless of their child care settings.

Limitations

• Non-experimental study design
• The sample over-represents children and families experiencing lower risk.
• The HOME assessment was not conducted at 24 months.

Findings

Controlling for baseline family and maternal characteristics and indicators of family instability:

1. The occurrence of a mother-child separation of a week or longer within the first two years of life was related to higher levels of child negativity at age 3 and aggression at ages 3 and 5.
2. The effect of separation on child aggression at age 5 was mediated by aggression at age 3, suggesting that the effects of separation on children’s aggressive behavior are early and persistent.
3. While it is known that traumatic or extended separations can negatively impact children’s development, the present study suggests that even relatively minor separations of a week or more that occur within the first two years of life are not entirely without adverse consequences for children’s development. Although more information is certainly required about the physical and emotional contexts that might buffer the effects of separations on children’s development, it is clear that a mother’s physical accessibility during the first years of life has important implications for supporting positive child development.

Limitations

• Lack of information on caregiving arrangements during the separation
• Lack of information on the quality of care that the child received during the separation
• Future research should consider the examination of these additional characteristics in order to strengthen the causal interpretation about the role of separation in predicting children’s behavior:
  • Infant characteristics, such as temperament
  • Maternal personality characteristics or emotional well-being during the prenatal period

Findings

1. Deployment may have negative effects on children between the ages of 0 to 5 years in military families.
2. Deployment could potentially create a developmental crisis and could impact attachment patterns, resulting in intense emotions or behavior changes.
3. An enormous number of young children in military families are dealing with the effects of deployment and post-deployment adjustment. In response, major resources should be directed at services that bolster the well-being of children and parents in military families.
4. Program elements that address service-member parents’ ability to reintegrate upon returning from deployment may be especially helpful to children of all ages and young children in particular. These needs are even more urgent when a parent returns from war with mental health concerns that may complicate his or her efforts to cope with the simultaneous demands of recovery, reintegration, and parenting.
5. There is a need for development and adaptation of programs that are ecologically valid, relevant to the military culture and community-informed. Such approaches may reduce long-standing issues regarding stigma, fragmentation of services, and impediments to outreach that target military families.

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Findings

1. For maternal and paternal use of power at 25 to 38 months, there was no effect of security.
2. For children’s resentful opposition to mothers at 52 months, early security had a significant effect. Children who had been more insecure showed more resentful opposition than those who had been secure.
3. For children’s resentful opposition to fathers at 52 months, there was no significant effect of early security.
4. For parental ratings of children’s antisocial, disruptive behavior problems at 67 months, there were no effects of early security for either parent.
5. The effect of parental power assertion with mothers and fathers on child future resentful opposition to the mother was significant for insecurely attached children, but not for secure children.

Limitations

• The participants were low-risk families where power assertion was generally low.
• Typical strategies coded as power assertive included mildly forceful tactics that rarely, if ever, escalated to harsh physical punishment or threats.
• Children’s antisocial problems were also generally infrequent.
• The study was non-experimental, limiting the interpretations of the direction of the results.

Findings

1. Maternal sensitivity, parental harshness and productive activity are related to externalizing problems, but patterns of relations change from early childhood to middle childhood to adolescence with evidence suggesting that externalizing behavior influences parenting more than the reverse from middle childhood onward.
2. Self-control measured during early adolescence partially mediated relations between maternal sensitivity and adolescent-reported externalizing behavior.
3. Parental monitoring during adolescence was also related to externalizing behavior at age 15. Monitoring partially mediated the relation between externalizing behavior in early adolescence and externalizing at age 15.

Limitations

• Few instances of harshness at the level of maltreatment and a limited measure of harshness
• About 30% attrition over the 15-year study
• Relatively small proportion of minority and high-risk families
• Missing data on measures, particularly teacher reports of externalizing behavior during early childhood
• Not all of the key variables were equally stable. Most notable is the modest stability in parental harshness.

Findings

1. Both child inhibitory control and maternal harsh discipline made significant contributions to child externalizing problems in all three countries.
2. Across countries, child inhibitory control and maternal harsh discipline made significant independent contributions to early externalizing problems, suggesting an additive model of association.
3. Our findings supported the cross-cultural generalizability of child inhibitory control and parental harsh punishment as key contributors to disruptive behavior in young children.

Limitations

• Participants primarily were drawn from two-parent, middle-class families; thus, the findings may not generalize to children in other family constellations or families experiencing severe economic hardship.
• Samples were drawn from typically developing preschoolers, limiting generalizability to clinically referred populations of young children.
• The mediation model was based on theoretical evidence that supported the direction of effects from parenting behavior to child self-regulation. However, impulsive, disruptive child behavior often elicits upper limit controls and negative affect from parents (Sameroff, 2009). Empirical studies have shown that the early development of disruptive behavior reflects reciprocal relations between child and parent behaviors (e.g., Combs-Ronto, et al., 2009; Scaramella & Leve, 2004). Thus, the findings should not be used to draw causal inferences concerning the directionality of parent-child influences.
• Maternal report: Although laboratory measures of child inhibitory control were included, parenting behaviors and child externalizing problems were evaluated using maternal report. Incorporating other sources of information may prevent possible informant bias as well as provide a more detailed and comprehensive understanding of mothers’ early contributions to children’s disruptive behavior. Furthermore, investigating fathers’ roles in these relations may lead to a richer pattern of findings (e.g., see Chang, et al., 2003).
• Over 50 different risk factors have been related to the development of child externalizing problems (Dodge & Pettit, 2003).

Findings

1. Maternal warmth was a significant predictor of higher levels of behavior regulation independent of any contribution of maternal responsiveness to distress.
2. Neither of the child variables (gender and effortful control) nor the mothers' level of education reached levels of significance in predicting the child’s behavior regulation.
3. Maternal responsiveness and children’s internalization of rules of conduct were significantly and positively associated, whereas maternal warmth was not a predictor. Girls showed higher levels of internalization than boys.
4. Mother’s level of education did not reach significance for internalization of rules of conduct.

Limitations

• Mothers in this study tended to show higher levels of warmth than in other studies, due to sample characteristics.
• Reliance on self-reports
• Cross-sectional data only
• Not socioeconomically diverse

Finding

1. Perceived discipline strategies remain a significant predictor of emerging adults’ emotional adjustment across all models, whereas perceived parenting styles remain a significant predictor for females only.

Limitations

• Generalizability of the findings: Over 3/4 of participants were Caucasian.
• Very few participants reported backgrounds of low socioeconomic status.
• Sole reliance on the self-report of emerging adult participants
• Information regarding participant living status (e.g., at home, on campus, etc.) and amount of contact with parents was not collected.
• Correlational in nature: This study is unable to determine causation.
• Many other factors not studied here may influence emerging adults’ emotional adjustment as well.

Findings

1. Four parenting classes were defined as hypothesized.
2. Decreases in monitoring occurred for authoritarian and authoritative parents, with steeper decreases for the authoritarian than authoritative. The indulgent classes also showed a steep decrease in monitoring as might be expected.
3. These parenting styles were differentially related to changes in parent- and child-reported measures of children’s alcohol and cigarette use, antisocial behavior and internalizing symptoms, with the authoritative parenting class being related to the most optimal long-term development.
4. Children of authoritative parents had better outcomes across the board, as is consistent with the literature.
5. Some of the disadvantages of non-authoritative parenting accumulated over time.
6. Children were twice as likely to have chemical/tobacco use if parents were uninvolved.
7. Boys of uninvolved parents were at greater risk for antisocial behavior.
8. There was greater prevalence of internalizing symptoms for children of authoritarian parents over time.

Limitations

• Sample is almost exclusively white.
• Parents and children did not report on sample variables, reducing reliability.
• The single-item quality of the child-reported measurements constitutes a weakness.

Findings

1. Higher levels of permissive discipline were related to higher levels of harsh punishment.
2. Harsh discipline was significantly correlated with intensity of disruptive behavior in boys and girls, so that harsh discipline was related to more intense disruptive behavior.
3. Permissive parenting was significantly correlated with intensity of disruptive behavior in boys but not girls.
4. For boys, higher levels of permissive parenting were related to more intensive disruptive behaviors.
5. For girls, higher levels of parental education were related to less intense disruptive behaviors.
6. For boys, child age was significantly related to intensity of disruptive behavior.

Limitations

• Data are cross-sectional, limiting conclusions about causality.
• Focus was on two ineffective discipline strategies. Many important strategies parents use were not examined.
• All of the data was based on parent reports.

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Findings

1. The significance of family support in enhancing maternal parental self-efficacy and positively influencing mental health for first-time mothers at 6 weeks post-delivery: There was a significant association between informal social network (family and friends) support and maternal parental self-efficacy at 6 weeks post-delivery.
2. Significant relationships were found between: functional social support and postnatal depression; informal social support and postnatal depression; maternal parental self-efficacy and postnatal depression; and informal social support and maternal parental self-efficacy at 6 weeks post-delivery.

Limitations

• As this was a quantitative study, mothers’ in-depth perceptions and experiences of social support, maternal parental self-efficacy and postnatal depression have not been explored from their frame of reference.
• Non-random sample: A convenience sample was selected due to time constraints and in an effort to obtain a large number of respondents with consideration for tests of statistical significance. A random sample may have provided a group with differing support needs, maternal parental self-efficacy levels and rates of postnatal depression.

Findings

1. New mothers spent approximately three hours on the computer each day, with most of this time spent on the Internet—a significant proportion of time.
2. Findings suggested that frequency of blogging predicted feelings of connection to extended family and friends, which then predicted perceptions of social support.
3. This in turn predicted maternal well-being as measured by marital satisfaction, couple conflict, parenting stress and depression.
4. Conversely, unlike blogging, our results revealed that social networking was not associated with connectedness or social support.

Limitations

• Paper is exploratory in nature: This is one of the first studies to examine first-time, new mothers’ social media use, especially blogging and social networking, and the potential relationship between media use and maternal well-being.
• Correlational research cannot establish causation.
• Demonstrated effects may be reversed; for example, it may be that those mothers with stronger relationships tend to turn to blogging more to connect with extended family and friends. It is also possible that those with better well-being may be more or less likely to use media for social support.
• Sample was limited and consisted of mostly white, highly educated mothers.
• It is also important to note that blogging can be done in different domains. For example, some mothers may blog in order to connect with family and friends, while others may blog in order to connect with other parents on the Web. This study did not address this distinction.
• Measures of media use were limited (e.g., access to social media supports on the Internet via mobile phones and other devices was not examined).

Findings

1. Work role was found to be non-significant in relation to mothers' midlife satisfaction, whereas an authoritative parenting style was significantly correlated to this same variable.
2. Employed mothers did report being more stressed, especially when their children were younger, but maternal work role was not predictive of these women’s life satisfaction in midlife.

Limitations

• Retrospective: Asking mothers to recall retrospectively their parenting styles is a potential limitation in this study. Certainly social desirability effects or other biases in memory could come into play.
• Non-random sample: Sample was overwhelmingly Caucasian and Christian, so generalizations must be made with caution.
• Results, while significant, accounted for a small amount of variance and thus should not be over-interpreted.

Findings

1. Evidence at the animal level:
   1. Several different mechanisms of plasticity, including dendritic and synaptic turnover and neurogenesis, have been identified.
   2. The animal and human evidence is consistent in demonstrating that many forms of stress promote excessive growth in sectors of the amygdala, whereas effects in the hippocampus tend to be opposite.
   3. Whether critical or sensitive periods exist for plasticity in response to social influences has not been thoroughly addressed and more systematic developmental studies are required. The reversibility of structural changes following alterations in social and emotional conditions has not been systematically examined.
2. Evidence at the human level:
   1. Research is beginning to document the effect of explicit interventions designed to decrease stress and promote pro-social behavior and well-being on brain structure and function. These studies are consistent with basic research in demonstrating increases in specific sectors of prefrontal activation and decreases in amygdala activation.
   2. These functional alterations are accompanied by structural changes that show increases in prefrontal volume and decreases in amygdala volume.
   3. The precise differences among the various interventions that have been developed for this general purpose have not been systematically studied, nor has the relation between functional and structural changes been carefully documented.
   4. It is apparent that both structural and functional connectivity between prefrontal regions and subcortical structures is extremely important for emotion regulation and that these connections represent important targets for plasticity-induced changes.
3. The studies on interventions explicitly designed to promote positive emotional qualities, such as kindness and mindfulness, imply that such qualities might best be regarded as the product of skills that can be enhanced through training, just as practice will improve musical performance and produce correlated regionally-specific anatomical changes.
4. Whether these interventions simply modulate the adverse effects of stress or whether they result in a profile of neurobehavioral functioning that is better than normal will require considerably more evidence, although the available evidence points toward the latter possibility.

Findings

1. Associations of social support and volunteering with self-rated health are consistently positive across different cultural, economic and geographic settings. However, the magnitude of this association varies significantly.
2. The hypothesis that associations between health and social support will be stronger in non-Western countries as a result of their weaker social protection policies.
3. Results suggest no marked gender difference in the relationship between social capital and self-rated health.
4. Self-rated health was significantly associated with having social support from friends and relatives and volunteering. These associations are strikingly consistent across countries.
5. Results indicate that the link between social capital and health is not restricted to high-income countries but extends across many geographical regions regardless of their national income level.

Limitations

• Data do not allow cross-national or cross-regional comparisons of absolute levels of self-rated health and social contacts.
• Measures in the Gallup survey are dichotomous. There was no examination of whether there was a “dose response” association between social capital measures and health.
• The use of single items instead of a multidimensional measure of both health and social support
• While it is tempting to interpret these findings as evidence of causality from social networks and volunteering to health, it is likely that at least part of the association observed reflects the impact of health on these two forms of social capital (reverse causation).
• The extent of comparability of measures of social capital across different cultures and regions would also limit the interpretation of our results.

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