Although there is considerable support for the influence of maternal attachment on children's development (see Gerhardt, 2015), this is one of the first studies to examine the effects of maternal prenatal reports of attachment representations with close others on reports of infants’ health. Mothers (N = 483) completed surveys to assess attachment and depression in the second or third trimester of pregnancy, infants’ health over the first 6 months, and depression and infant temperament when infants were 6 months old. We found that insecure mothers, as compared to secure mothers, were more likely to report that their infants experienced colic and illnesses associated with immune, cardiovascular, and respiratory systems. It may be that secure mothers experience less anxiety associated with parenting and, as expected, were consistently found to report lower levels of infant illness symptoms. Alternatively, secure mothers would be expected to provide more consistent and responsive care compared to insecure mothers, which may also influence their infants’ physical health (see also Gerhardt, 2015). Future research needs to further explore this finding — do secure mothers simply perceive their infants to be healthier due to their own low anxiety or are infants of secure mothers healthier due to consistent and responsive care received?

Potential long-term associations between repetitive negative thinking and mother-infant interactions have received little attention. The current longitudinal study including N = 62 mother-infant dyads investigated both maternal and infant behavior in face-to-face interactions as a function of pre- and postnatal maternal repetitive negative thinking when infants were aged around 4 months. We hypothesised that mothers with a strong tendency to engage in repetitive negative thinking would react less contingently to their infants’ behavior compared to mothers with a weak tendency to engage in repetitive negative thinking. Furthermore, we hypothesised that infants of mothers high in repetitive negative thinking would differ from infants of mothers low in repetitive negative thinking in their reactions in the still-face task. Contrary to expectations, there was no difference in maternal contingency between mothers high versus low in repetitive negative thinking. However, infant behavior in the still-face task differed as a function of maternal repetitive negative thinking status. Specifically, infants of mothers high in repetitive negative thinking spent more time with object/environment engagement than infants of mothers who were low in repetitive negative thinking, and they also protested less frequently. These findings are discussed in terms of their relevance for the intergenerational transmission of mental disorders.

Infants’ smiling is considered an expression of affection, and an index of cognitive and socio-emotional development. Despite research advances in this area, there is much to explore on the ontogeny of smiling, its meaning and the context in which it is manifested early in life. This study aimed at: (a) investigating smiling patterns in these different developmental moments in early infancy, (b) analyzing patterns of association between babies’ smiles and their mothers’ affective behaviors, and (c) verifying whether babies can answer contingently, with smiles, to mothers’ affective behaviors. Participants were sixty Brazilian mother-infant dyads. Infants in three age levels (one, three, and five months of age) and their mothers were observed. They were videotaped at home, during 20 minutes in free sessions. The results indicate increase in frequency of infants’ smiling instances across ages (F(2, 59) = 9.18, p < .05), variations in the frequency of maternal behaviors accompanying the variations in infants’ smiling (F(2, 59) = 6.03, p < .05), correlations between infants’ smiling and mothers’ affective behaviors, and contingency between the behaviors of both mothers and infants. It was verified a strong association between mothers’ behavior and their babies’ smiles, emphasizing the importance of affective interactions in early stages of development.

According to the literature about developmental changes, periods of instability and disorganization in the social and emotional behavior in both human and non-human primate, infancy precedes major developmental achievements or transitions (Heimann, 2003; Sparrow & Brazelton, 2006). Developmental investigators have observed a more frequent and prolonged crying, clinging and bids for physical contact with mother during these periods of instability and disorganization. Some authors, according to Horwich (1974), called these periods regression periods. Rijt-Plooij and Plooij (1992) claimed that 10 regression periods could be identified during the first 20 months of human life. In an early study, Sadurní and Rostan (2002) confirmed the presence of 8 such regression periods during the first year of life of 18 Catalan babies. Their 8 regression periods were comparable to the first 8 of the 10 regression periods found by Van de Rijt Plooij and Plooij. The aim of the present study is to see whether the regression periods that we found are temporally related to some transition. We define a transition as the occurrence of a new developmental change in a child. In the present study we have used non-analyzed data from the same 18 Catalan babies (10 boys and 8 girls) as mentioned in our earlier published study on regression periods. The age of these babies was between 3 weeks and 14 months. Using a microgenetic methodology we have found 8 transitions periods in the first year of life. We have also observed a temporal relation between the regressions periods found earlier and the transition periods reported here.