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This randomized controlled trial (NTR5697) examined the effects of a 5-week daily skin-to-skin contact (SSC) intervention, compared with care-as-usual, on full-term infant crying and sleeping duration during the first 12 weeks postnatally (secondary outcomes of this trial). This trial included 116 Dutch healthy mothers and their full-term infants. SSC mothers were instructed to provide 1 hr daily of SSC for the first 5 weeks postpartum. Intention-to-treat analyses revealed no group differences in infant crying (i.e., total duration and mean bout length) and sleeping (i.e., total duration and mean bout length). Per-protocol analyses, including only the SSC dyads who adhered to SSC guidelines, indicated that SSC reduced infant total crying duration and the crying bout length. Similarly, dose-response analyses indicated that more SSC minutes were associated with less infant crying (i.e., shorter total duration and bout length) and longer total sleeping duration, especially when the infant was younger. No group differences and associations were found with sleeping bout length. Mother-infant SSC, when performed regularly, may be a cost-effective intervention to reduce infant crying and potentially also extend infant sleep duration.

This study advances the cross-cultural temperament literature by comparing temperament ratings of toddlers from 14 nations. Multilevel modeling (MLM) procedures were utilized to regress negative emotionality (NE) and component subscales on Hofstede's cultural value dimensions while controlling for age and gender. More individualistic values were associated with lower NE, and component discomfort, fear, motor activity, perceptual sensitivity, and soothability scales. The discomfort subscale was negatively associated with power distance and positively associated with masculine cultural values. Higher ratings of shyness were related to a more long-term cultural orientation. Results illustrate the feasibility of an MLM approach to cross-cultural research and provide a new perspective on the intersection of culture and temperament development. Limitations and future implications are discussed.

The development of biological markers of aging has primarily focused on adult samples. Epigenetic clocks are a promising tool for measuring biological age that show impressive accuracy across most tissues and age ranges. In adults, deviations from the DNA methylation (DNAm) age prediction are correlated with several age-related phenotypes, such as mortality and frailty. In children, however, fewer such associations have been made, possibly because DNAm changes are more dynamic in pediatric populations as compared to adults. To address this gap, we aimed to develop a highly accurate, noninvasive, biological measure of age specific to pediatric samples using buccal epithelial cell DNAm. We gathered 1,721 genome-wide DNAm profiles from 11 different cohorts of typically developing individuals aged 0 to 20 y old. Elastic net penalized regression was used to select 94 CpG sites from a training dataset (n = 1,032), with performance assessed in a separate test dataset (n = 689). DNAm at these 94 CpG sites was highly predictive of age in the test cohort (median absolute error = 0.35 y). The Pediatric-Buccal-Epigenetic (PedBE) clock was characterized in additional cohorts, showcasing the accuracy in longitudinal data, the performance in nonbuccal tissues and adult age ranges, and the association with obstetric outcomes. The PedBE tool for measuring biological age in children might help in understanding the environmental and contextual factors that shape the DNA methylome during child development, and how it, in turn, might relate to child health and disease.

Telomeres are the protective DNA-protein sequences appearing at the ends of chromosomes; they shorten with each cell division and are considered a biomarker of aging. Shorter telomere length and greater erosion have been associated with compromised physical and mental health and are hypothesized to be affected by early life stress. In the latter case, most work has relied on retrospective measures of early life stressors. The Dutch research (n = 193) presented herein tested 3 hypotheses prospectively regarding effects of sensitive-insensitive parenting during the first 2.5 years on telomere length at age 6, when first measured, and change over the following 4 years. It was predicted that (1) less sensitive parenting would predict shorter telomeres and greater erosion and that such effects would be most pronounced in children (2) exposed to prenatal stress and/or (3) who were highly negatively emotional as infants. Results revealed, only, that prenatal stress amplified parenting effects on telomere change-in a differential-susceptibility-related manner: Prenatally stressed children displayed more erosion when they experienced insensitive parenting and less erosion when they experienced sensitive parenting. Mechanisms that might initiate greater postnatal plasticity as a result of prenatal stress are highlighted and future work outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Although maternal postpartum depressive symptoms (PDS) are associated with child behavior problems, the underlying biological mechanisms are poorly understood. Thus, the current study focused on 193 healthy mother-child dyads and investigated child cortisol and telomere length as potential mediating factors. At 3 and 6 months postpartum, mothers reported on PDS. At age 6, children provided saliva and buccal swab samples. At age 10, mothers and children reported on child behavior problems. Structural equation modelling revealed (a) no association between PDS and child behavior problems and thus no possibility of mediation, but that (b) lower cortisol forecast more child-reported internalizing problems, and (c) shorter telomere length predicted more child-reported internalizing and externalizing problems. These findings raise mediational questions about the determinants of these biomarkers.

Maternal anxiety and depression symptomatology are risk factors for the development of children's internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. However, it is still unclear whether chronic and transient symptoms relate differently to child behavior. The aim of this prospective longitudinal study (N = 193) was to investigate the associations between anxiety and depression symptomatology in a community sample across the first 12.5 years of parenthood, and children's internalizing and externalizing problems. Maternal anxiety and depression were measured at the child's age of 3, 6, and 12 months, and 2.5, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12.5 years. At 12.5 years of age, both mothers and children reported on children's internalizing and externalizing problems. Trait-state occasion modeling was used to disentangle the chronic (trait) part of maternal symptomatology from the transient (occasion-specific) part. On average, 66.6% of the variance in maternal anxiety and depression symptomatology could be explained by the chronic trait factor. For both anxiety and depression, the chronic variance in maternal symptomatology was related to mother-reported internalizing, but not externalizing, problems of the child. Also, for child-reported internalizing problems, a significant association with maternal anxiety and depression symptomatology emerged. Only the occasion-specific part of maternal depression symptomatology at the child's age of 12.5 years was marginally related to mother-reported internalizing problems. Given that chronic subclinical symptomatology seems to be associated with child internalizing problems, prevention and treatment of maternal anxiety and depression symptomatology might be worthwhile regardless of the degree of severity.

Habituation and dishabituation are the most prevalent measures of infant cognitive functioning, and they have reliably been shown to predict later cognitive outcomes. Yet, the exact mechanisms underlying infant habituation and dishabituation are still unclear. To investigate them, we tested 106 8‐month‐old infants on a classic habituation task and a novel visual learning task. We used a hierarchical Bayesian model to identify individual differences in sustained attention, learning performance, processing speed and curiosity from the visual learning task. These factors were then related to habituation and dishabituation. We found that habituation time was related to individual differences in processing speed, while dishabituation was related to curiosity, but only for infants who did not habituate. These results offer novel insights in the mechanisms underlying habituation and serve as proof of concept for hierarchical models as an effective tool to measure individual differences in infant cognitive functioning. Research Highlights: We used a hierarchical Bayesian model to measure individual differences in infants' processing speed, learning performance, sustained attention, and curiosity.Faster processing speed was related to shorter habituation time.High curiosity was related to stronger dishabituation responses, but only for infants who did not habituate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exposure to war is known to impact children's physical and mental health. Recent research reveals that war exposure might even affect the developmental outcomes of children who are yet to be conceived. In this study, we sought to extend such prior work by investigating longitudinal associations between pre-conception war exposure and the accompanying maternal emotional distress on child sleep. Israeli mothers, who conceived within a year after the Lebanon war in 2006 (N = 68), were followed until their children reached 10 years of age. At that age, child sleep problems were measured through mother and child reports. Results from analyses of covariances (ANCOVAs) showed that war exposure prior to conception itself did not predict child sleep. However, hierarchical regression analyses showed that higher levels of maternal emotional distress, as a result of pre-conception war exposure, predicted more sleep problems in girls. Further exploratory analyses revealed that these associations showed themselves in both maternal and child reports on various sleep domains. In boys, no evidence was found for associations between maternal emotional distress during wartime and sleep 10 years later. These results indicate that war-related pre-conception stress might have long-term, sex-specific effects on child sleep, though replication with larger samples is needed to corroborate the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Telomeres are the protective DNA-protein sequences appearing at the ends of chromosomes; they shorten with each cell division and are considered a biomarker of aging. Shorter telomere length and greater erosion have been associated with compromised physical and mental health and are hypothesized to be affected by early life stress. In the latter case, most work has relied on retrospective measures of early life stressors. The Dutch research (n = 193) presented herein tested 3 hypotheses prospectively regarding effects of sensitive-insensitive parenting during the first 2.5 years on telomere length at age 6, when first measured, and change over the following 4 years. It was predicted that (1) less sensitive parenting would predict shorter telomeres and greater erosion and that such effects would be most pronounced in children (2) exposed to prenatal stress and/or (3) who were highly negatively emotional as infants. Results revealed, only, that prenatal stress amplified parenting effects on telomere change--in a differential-susceptibility-related manner: Prenatally stressed children displayed more erosion when they experienced insensitive parenting and less erosion when they experienced sensitive parenting. Mechanisms that might initiate greater postnatal plasticity as a result of prenatal stress are highlighted and future work outlined.