Effects of Attachment-Based Intervention on Low-Income Latinx Infants' and Mothers' Cardiac Vagal Regulation

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According to the biological embedding model, early environments get “under the skin” via stress regulation to influence physical health. Consistent with this model, attachment research links supportive caregiving to health outcomes, but underlying psychophysiological mechanisms are not well understood. This R03 proposal focuses on cardiac vagal tone, an important index of stress regulation that has been associated with early caregiving and physical health. In particular, we will examine infants' and mothers' respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) at rest and in response to mild stressors. We hypothesize that attachment-based interventions that promote sensitive caregiving and infants' and mothers' stress regulation have the potential to support good physical health. The extant literature suggests that mothers' sensitive caregiving may influence infant RSA, maternal RSA, and RSA synchrony, but causal effects have not been tested. These effects require rigorous investigation to elucidate the developmental pathways to effective stress regulation. Results will in turn inform improvement and evaluation of attachment-based interventions and their effects on child health. Thus, experimental studies of attachment- based interventions are necessary to test whether and how caregiving causally affects the development of RSA, and for whom such interventions are most effective. The proposed study will extend PI Berlin's recently completed RCT testing the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) program with low-income, Latinx mothers and their infants (N = 181). RCT findings to date illustrate positive effects on maternal sensitivity and infant behavioral and cortisol regulation. In a supplemental data collection, electrocardiographic recordings, from which RSA scores can be constructed, were collected from both infants and mothers during a series of mild stressors. Supplemental funding is required to (a) clean, edit, and calculate RSA values; and (b) conduct data analysis. The sample reflects an underrepresented and potentially highly informative population in which to study the associations among caregiving and stress regulation, as sociocultural context may play an especially important role in stress regulation for Latinx families. Therefore, increased maternal sensitivity may be more important – and attachment-based intervention more effective - for Latinx families characterized by higher-risk (lower-resourced) sociocultural contexts. We will test ABC intervention effects on infant RSA, maternal RSA, and infant-mother RSA synchrony (Aim 1). We will also test two aspects of sociocultural context (maternal acculturation and neighborhood social cohesion) as moderators of intervention effects (Aim 2). By leveraging an existing RCT involving an underrepresented population potential impact will be high: This study will break new ground and will create, through the generation of effect sizes and statistical power estimations, a foundation for the next phase of this research: a more comprehensive (R01) study of the potential of attachment-based intervention to improve children's health outcomes in low-income Latinx families.