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Mothers who are securely attached in pregnancy show more attuned infant mirroring 7 months postpartum

Sohye Kim1, Peter Fonagy2, Jon Allen3

  • 1Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United States; Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United States; Attachment and Neurodevelopment Laboratory, Children's Nutrition Research Center, Houston, TX, United States.

Infant Behavior & Development
|July 15, 2014
PubMed

This study contrasted two forms of mother-infant mirroring: the mother's imitation of the infant's facial, gestural, or vocal behavior (i.e., "direct mirroring") and the mother's ostensive verbalization of the infant's internal state, marked as distinct from the infant's own experience (i.e., "intention mirroring"). Fifty mothers completed the Adult Attachment Interview (Dynamic Maturational Model) during the third trimester of pregnancy. Mothers returned with their infants 7 months postpartum and completed a modified still-face procedure. While direct mirroring did not distinguish between secure and insecure/dismissing mothers, secure mothers were observed to engage in intention mirroring more than twice as frequently as did insecure/dismissing mothers. Infants of the two mother groups also demonstrated differences, with infants of secure mothers directing their attention toward their mothers at a higher frequency than did infants of insecure/dismissing mothers. The findings underscore marked and ostensive verbalization as a distinguishing feature of secure mothers' well-attuned, affect-mirroring communication with their infants.

Keywords:
AttachmentInfant attentionMaternal mirroringMother–infant communication

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