Infant and parent heart rates during a babywearing procedure: Evidence for autonomic coregulation

Babywearing is the practice of carrying an infant in a baby carrier, which may provide an inexpensive, nonpharmacological intervention for the parent-infant dyads to handle mental stressors, such as pain and anxiety, especially among vulnerable infants. This study investigated the influence of babywearing on parent-infant autonomic coregulation based on the changes in the HR of mother-infant and father-infant dyads for infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). Guided by the Calming Cycle Theory as the framework, the correlation between parent HR and infant HR and the difference in the mother-infant dyad (n = 17) compared to the father-infant dyad (n = 8) were examined. Although only the mother-infant HRs reached statistical significance during babywearing (r̅ =.52, p = .03), both parent-infant dyads had strong correlations during babywearing (compared to pre- and post-babywearing conditions), indicating that babywearing, for parents and their infants with NAS, may influence autonomic coregulation. •Babywearing facilitates emotional and physical communication between infant and parent through reciprocal responsiveness.•Parent and infant heart rates are highly correlated during babywearing possibly indicating autonomic coregulation.•Heart rate corrleation between the mother-infant dyads is stronger than the father-infant dyads but not statistically significant.•Babywearing is an economical, nonpharmacological calming method for parents and infants with NAS.