Institute of Psychology, FAmily and DevelOpment research center (FADO), University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Institute of Higher Education and Research in Healthcare, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; Child Abuse and Neglect Team, Department Woman-Mother-Child, Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2025 Jan;171:107222. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2024.107222. Epub 2024 Oct 16.
One-third of women experience childbirth as traumatic and some develop symptoms of childbirth-related posttraumatic stress symptoms (CB-PTSD symptoms). Whether CB-PTSD symptoms negatively impact on physiological and psychological stress responses in mothers and their offspring and whether they are associated with mother-infant synchrony is not clear. This study aimed to investigate stress responses of (1) mothers with CB-PTSS, (2) of their infant, and (3) the physiological mother-child-synchrony at six months postpartum.
Psychophysiological (cortisol and vagal tone) and psychological stress responses of mothers and infant's (n=31 dyads) from the Swiss TrAumatic biRth Trial (NCT03576586) were assessed during a face-to-face still-face paradigm (FFSF-R).
There was a significant time effect in maternal stress responses for salivary cortisol, vagal tone, and for maternal subjective stress. As expected, mothers' subjective stress increased during the stress task and mothers vagal tone changed during the first stressful period but not during the second, whereas cortisol unexpectedly decreased over the FFSF-R. Infant negative mood increased over the experiment, but there were no physiological changes. However, a significant interaction effect for mother-infant synchrony during the second reunion period of the FFSF-R was found.
Although mothers and their infants were subjectively stressed, they showed only limited physiological stress responses.
三分之一的女性经历分娩时会感到创伤，一些女性会出现与分娩相关的创伤后应激症状（CB-PTSD 症状）。CB-PTSD 症状是否会对母亲及其后代的生理和心理应激反应产生负面影响，以及它们是否与母婴同步有关尚不清楚。本研究旨在调查（1）有 CB-PTSS 的母亲、（2）其婴儿和（3）产后六个月的生理母婴同步的应激反应。
瑞士创伤性分娩试验（NCT03576586）中的 31 对母婴的心理生理（皮质醇和迷走神经张力）和心理应激反应在面对面的静止面孔范式（FFSF-R）中进行了评估。
唾液皮质醇、迷走神经张力和母亲主观应激的母亲应激反应存在显著的时间效应。如预期的那样，母亲的主观应激在应激任务中增加，母亲的迷走神经张力在第一个应激期发生变化，但在第二个应激期没有变化，而皮质醇出人意料地在 FFSF-R 期间下降。婴儿的负面情绪在实验过程中增加，但没有生理变化。然而，在 FFSF-R 的第二次团聚期间，发现了母婴同步的显著交互效应。
尽管母亲及其婴儿主观上感到压力，但他们仅表现出有限的生理应激反应。
