Role of Maternal Mindfulness in Longitudinal Mother-Infant Neuroendocrine Attunement

Mother-infant physiological attunement plays a crucial role in child well-being and development. While mindfulness in parenting has been linked to mother-infant stress responses, no research has examined its relationship with developmental trajectories of neuroendocrine attunement. This study addresses this gap by examining maternal mindfulness—both alone and in the context of parenting risk and protective factors¬—in relation to mother-infant cortisol attunement over time. Using data from 56 predominantly white, low-income mother-infant dyads followed from 3-18 months postpartum, we tested maternal mindful parenting at 3 months as a predictor of both (1) within-session attunement of mother and infant cortisol responses to acute stress and (2) across-session attunement of developmental shifts in their cortisol levels from 6-18 months. Three-level hierarchical linear revealed that higher maternal mindful parenting, greater history of positive parental bonding, and lower parenting stress were associated with more inverse mother-infant cortisol attunement across timepoints. Additionally, parenting stress moderated the effect of mindful parenting: the inverse relation with attunement held for most dyads (60%), though reversed for those with the highest stress levels (top 9%). Findings delineate when and how positive versus inverse attunement may be adaptive and underscore the role of mindful parenting in mother-infant psychophysiological stress co-adaptation.