Download or read book Acculturation, Mood, and Infant Stress Reactivity in Mexican-American Mother-Infant Pairs written by Esmeralda Garcia and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present study examined the association between maternal acculturative processes, postnatal depression symptoms, and infant cortisol response to an acute stressor in a sample of 34 Mexican-American mother-infant pairs. Mothers completed self-report measures of acculturation, acculturative stress, and depression. Mother-infant pairs participated in the still-face procedure which has been validated as a mild psychosocial acute stressor for infants. Salivary cortisol was collected from the infants at three timepoints: upon arrival at the laboratory to assess baseline cortisol levels, 20 minutes after the second still face episode to assess reactivity to the stressor, and 40 minutes after the second still face episode to assess recovery from the stressor. The results suggest that higher maternal acculturative stress, but not acculturation is associated with higher postpartum depressive symptoms, and higher maternal acculturation is associated with a blunted infant cortisol recovery, but not reactivity in response to acute stress. Maternal postpartum depression did not significantly associate with infant acute stress response. However, a blunted recovery from acute stress is associated with higher maternal acculturation, and is of particular concern given deviations in the stress response system have been linked with the ontogeny of mood disorders as well as other physiological and psychological disorders in children. Also, because maternal acculturative stress is associated with maternal postpartum depressive symptoms, it has implications not only for the mothers' mental health, but also the infants' environment and quality of care. The findings of the present study suggest that, for Mexican-Americans in the postpartum period, acculturative processes have implications for both mother and infant health.