Advance-CTR

Advance RI-CTR Mentored Research Award (2025)

"Maternal-Infant Stress Reactivity as an Intergenerational Pathway to Cardiovascular Disease Risk"

This study looks at whether practicing mindfulness during pregnancy helps both moms and their babies handle stress better, which could lead to healthier hearts for both of them in the long run.

Prenatal Mindfulness training (MT) shows promise as a preventive intervention against hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) and may reduce risk for offspring cardiovascular disease (CVD). One proposed mechanism of MT to reduced CVD risk is improved self-regulation following stress. Perhaps the most crucial contributor to the development of self-regulation in the first year is the psychophysiological coregulatory relationship between mother and infant. However, this self-and co-regulation among women exposed to prenatal MT has not been studied and has yet to be examined in relation to CVD risk. 

The goal of this project is to evaluate maternal-infant physiological reactivity to and recovery from stress at 6 months postpartum following prenatal MT, and to examine the relationship between these maternal infant stress responses and maternal-infant CVD risk at 12 months postpartum. Using a lab-based stress paradigm and well-validated biomarkers of mother and infant CVD risk, respiratory sinus arrhythmia and heart rate at 6 months postpartum will be assessed for 40 mother-infant dyads who have completed either prenatal MT or a usual care arm of an RCT examining MT for women at risk for HDP. 

Maternal, infant, and dyadic stress responses by treatment arm will be compared. Then, cardiac stress responses as predictors of maternal and infant biomarkers of CVD risk at 12 months postpartum will be examined. 

The specific aims are:

• Aim 1: Evaluate psychophysiological responses to stress in women randomized to MT vs usual care and their offspring. H1: relative to women randomized to usual care, women randomized to prenatal mindfulness training and their offspring will 1) exhibit lower physiological reactivity to and quicker recovery from and 2) greater coregulation of physiological responses to a laboratory stress paradigm.
• Aim 2: Evaluate the relationship between maternal-infant psychophysiological responses to stress and cardiovascular markers of disease risk. H2: 1) lower maternal-infant physiogical reactivity to and quicker recovery from and 2) greater coregulation across a laboratory stress paradigm at 6 months will be associated with lower maternal and infant CVD risk at 12 months.

This study is directly in-line with the Rhode Island Department of Health’s priorities of improving the lives of mothers and their children and understanding and reducing cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death in Rhode Island. This mentored research award will afford me the time, resources, and training necessary to become an independent investigator developing targeted mind-body interventions to reduce risk for CVD among women and their children including: 1) Theory (models of risk for CVD; intergenerational transmission of CVD risk; infant physiology and development); 2) Methodology (measurement of dyadic psychophysiology; administration of the lab stressor); and 3) Statistics (multi-level modeling; dyadic data analysis). These foundational skills will contribute to the development of other awards, including an NIH career development award examining the effects of prenatal MT on mother-child coregulation, mental health, and attachment and their relationship with cardiovascular functioning in early childhood.

Mentors