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Updated: Aug 14, 2026

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
07:56

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure

Published on: September 19, 2019

Prenatal maternal reactivity to infant cries predicts postnatal perceptions of infant temperament and marriage

F A Pedersen, L C Huffman, R del Carmen

    Child Development
    |October 1, 1996
    PubMed

    In a sample of 60 primiparous women, cardiac response and ratings of subjective aversiveness to recordings of unfamiliar infant cries were studied at 32 weeks' gestation. Regression analyses were used to examine relations between cardiac acceleration and subjective aversiveness and 3 groups of postnatal dependent variables: perception of infant temperament, the mother's emotional state, and her appraisal of her marriage. Mothers who prenatally rated the cry recordings as more aversive postnatally described their 3-month-old infants as more fussy/difficult and unpredictable. With statistical control for prenatal variation on the emotional state and marital outcome measures, cardiac acceleration predicted later marital quality. Women who showed greater cardiac acceleration to the cries described their postnatal marital relationships more negatively.

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