Crying behaviour in early infancy is associated with developmental outcome at two years of age in very low birth weight infants (original) (raw)

The development of the crying state during early infancy

Developmental Psychobiology, 1987

The development of the crying state was studied in 14 infants from 3 to 18 weeks in two situations: the infant alone and in interaction with the mother. A major transformation occurred in the crying state after 3 months, with the appearance of what is termed interrupted fussing, which consists of rapid alternations between fuss sounds and Moing vocalizations. This change was only found in the alone situation. The functional implications of this finding are discussed within the contexts of motor development and the behavioral state concept.

Relationships between infant crying, birth complications, and maternal variables

Child: Care, Health and Development, 1998

The aim of the study is to identify factors in¯uencing infants' crying behaviour (total crying duration, length of crying bouts, and frequency of crying). The searching for variables explaining inter-individual dierences requires a sucient stability of the cry parameters at least over short time intervals. Thus, a second aim is to assess the intra-individual stability of the crying behaviour in an age range from 3 to 12 months. Sixty-two mother±child dyads participated in the study. The results show substantial stabilities of the crying behaviour of infants between 3 and 12 months of age. This is related to the amount of crying as well as to the pattern of crying shown by the children over a 24 h interval. The typical cry pattern is characterized by peaks at 12.00 h and early in the evening, although there are large individual dierences between the children with regard to cry durations at each hour of the day. Regarding the cry durations at 3 months of age, birth complications and the perceived emotional atmosphere in the mothers' family of origin are the major contributing factors.

Understanding persistent crying in infancy

Crying is one of the first forms of communication between infant and caregiver, used to gain the caregiver's attention and to elicit certain responses from them. By attending and responding to their infant's communicative cues appropriately, parents optimise their cognitive and emotional development. Parents commonly worry about crying babies and seek help and reassurance from health professionals. It is a common problem worldwide, with between 1.5 and 11.9% of babies exhibiting persistent crying. It is essential therefore that health professionals understand the range of normal crying behaviours and their likely natural history. Babies who cry for more than three hours a day, more than three days a week for more than three weeks are considered to exhibit excessive crying. Excessive crying is a complex issue. It can disturb the synchrony of the dyadic relationship between parent and child and impact on the wider emotional climate of the family. Targeted interventions for crying infants have traditionally focused on giving parents guidance about how to reduce episodes of crying in the baby. This short article provides a review the literature on the function of crying and how 'excessive' has been operationalised, neurobiological aspects in babies and caregivers, the interaction between these and behaviour, and interventions that might be helpful when parents present in clinic.

Fundamental Frequency of Neonatal Crying: Does Body Size Matter?

Journal of Voice, 2010

The objective of this study was to determine the influence of fetal growth on the fundamental frequency (F 0 ) of neonatal crying in a group of healthy full-term infants. The spontaneous cries of 131 infants were audio recorded during the first week of life, and subsequently submitted to acoustic analyses. The individual cry utterances produced by each infant were measured for minimum, mean, and maximum F 0 . The infants were placed into one of three groupings (low, average, high) based on body size indices according to the ponderal index (PI), the ratio of body weight to body length (BW/L), and body weight (BW) alone. The F 0 features of infants in each subgrouping of body size were compared and contrasted. The results indicated that features of cry F 0 were found to decrease marginally as a function of increased body size, with significant group differences confined to maximum F 0 . The BW index appeared to be the most sensitive measure in differentiating infant groups according to body size. In general, neonatal body size appears to have a slight, although nonsignificant influence on the vocal F 0 of crying in healthy full-term infants. Any body size-related changes in cry F 0 are likely to be found for maximum F 0 and may reflect stress-related variations in nervous system activation.