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August 30, 2026Developmental PsychobiologyOpen Access

Variation in Everyday Maternal Sensitivity Predicts Infants’ Real‐Time Physiological Regulation

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Authors

AMAnna Madden‐RusnakMMMegan MichelettiTWTaylor Wilds

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Overview

Observational study demonstrates that sensitive maternal care promotes adaptive infant heart rate regulation during distress, suggesting real-time parenting actively guides autonomic development.

Key Points

  • To examine how daily, real-time variations in maternal sensitivity influence infants' autonomic physiological regulation during spontaneous distress episodes.
  • Tracked 23 infants (aged 1–10 months, 48% female) in natural home environments using synchronized full-day audio recordings and continuous wearable heart rate monitors.
  • Identified 332 spontaneous infant distress episodes (mean = 14.34 per dyad), scored maternal sensitivity per episode on a 1–7 scale, and time-locked infant respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) to distress onset.
  • Between-person analyses demonstrated that infants with caregivers exhibiting higher-than-average sensitivity showed adaptive decreases in respiratory sinus arrhythmia following distress onset.
  • Within-person analyses revealed that infants displayed significant RSA reductions exclusively during specific episodes where caregivers responded with greater sensitivity than their personal baseline.

Cite This Study

Madden‐Rusnak et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a93f0476c1a8fb52e79c5c2https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.70193
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