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Mothers’ touch may reverse prenatal stress in infants

Maternal stroking in the first few weeks of infancy may alter the results that stress during pregnancy may have on a baby’s early-life development, according to researchers in the United Kingdom.

A team for the Wirral Child Health and Development Study recruited 1,233 first-time mothers at 20 weeks gestation and followed them from pregnancy to the first years of their children’s lives, observing the effects of early maternal stroking.

“The effect of prenatal depression on the infant outcomes differed depending on post-natal exposure to maternal stroking, as evidenced in a statistical interaction between prenatal depression and maternal stroking,” the researchers wrote.

The study results showed that links between depression symptoms in pregnancy and subsequent infant emotions of fear and anger, including heart rate response to stress at age 7 months, altered by how often a mother stroked here baby on the head, back, legs and arms in the early weeks of life, according to a press release.

Decreased physiological adaptability was associated with increased maternal depression and with increased negative emotionality only in the presence of low maternal stroking. The findings indicate the need for future studies of the epigenetic, physiological and behavioral effects of maternal stroking.

“The eventual aim is to find out whether we should recommend that mothers who have been stressed during pregnancy should be encouraged to stroke their babies early in life,” Dr.Helen Sharp, of the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, said in a press release.

Disclosure: The researchers reported no relevant financial disclosures.