Maternal Technology Use and Infant Self-Regulation

About

The development of effective self-regulation is one of the most important achievements of early childhood and is associated with better stress reactivity, lower risk for internalizing and externalizing problems, and lower risk for obesity. During infancy, key interconnected domains of self-regulation include emotion (i.e., distress regulation) and feeding (i.e., caloric intake regulation). An important contributor to regulation across these domains is synchrony in caregiver-infant interactions, of which a critical component is caregiver sensitive responsiveness to infant cues. Feeding interactions comprise a majority of early interactions and high quality, synchronous feeding interactions provide the infant with both nutritive and socioemotional benefits.

Given recent increases in portable technology use over the past decade, as well as further increases due to social distancing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is growing concern that the omnipresence of technology impacts the nature and quality of family interactions. Previous research illustrates 92% of mothers reported engaging with technological distractors (e.g., watching TV, using mobile devices) during infant feeding and distracted mothers exhibited lower sensitivity than mothers who were not distracted. Short-term experimental studies illustrate maternal technology use reduces the quality of dyadic interaction by decreasing maternal engagement, reducing maternal responsiveness to infants’ attention bids, and evoking undesirable infant responses, including increased negative affect and poorer focus. These findings are concerning, but the field is critically limited by a lack of longitudinal data to inform whether these short-term impacts are indicative of long-term detriments to infant development.

We address this research gap by conducting a novel longitudinal study featuring within-subject experimental manipulations and intensive assessments to better understand how maternal technology use impacts infant socioemotional, feeding, and growth outcomes. We will recruit 325 primiparous women during the 3rd trimester of pregnancy, then will assess mother-infant dyads at 2 weeks and 4, 6, 9, and 12 months postpartum.

The principal investigator, Alison Ventura at California Polytechnic State University, partnered with Brandon McDaniel, Senior Research Scientist, and the Parkview Mirro Center for Research and Innovation team, and the collaborative grant team were awarded a R01 grant through the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD104773) in 2022. Among other things, our team will assist the CalPoly study team in their real-time measurement of maternal phone and mobile technology use.

Partners

• Parkview Mirro Center for Research and Innovation
• California Polytechnic State University

Funding

• Awarded a R01 grant through the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD104773) in 2022 (PI: Alison Ventura, Co-I: Brandon McDaniel). This work will go from May 2022 to January 2027.

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