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Updated: Jun 29, 2026

A Preterm Rat Model for Pain Studies
Published on: February 9, 2024
Brief report: maternal emotional availability and infant pain-related distress
Laila Din1, Rebecca Pillai Riddell, Stuart Gordner
1Department of Psychology, York University, Ontario, Canada. ldin@yorku.ca
Objectives:
The current study investigated the relationships between maternal emotional availability and infant pain expressions.
Methods:
A group of 73 mother-infant dyads were recruited prior to their routine immunization appointment and were subsequently filmed.
Results:
Analyses revealed that maternal non-intrusiveness was related to lower infant pain expressions both immediately and 1 min following needle. In addition, maternal sensitivity and overall emotional availability were related to lower infant pain expressions 1 min after needle.
Conclusions:
These results suggest that intrusive caregiving behaviors can increase infant pain reactivity and hinder the regulation of pain-related distress. On the other hand, sensitive and emotionally available caregiving help infants to regulate their pain-related distress. The results support that infant pain expressions are related to the quality of maternal caregiving.
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