Linking preschoolers’ parasympathetic activity to maternal early adversity and child behavior: An intergenerational perspective

Increasing evidence suggests intergenerational effects of maternal early adversity on offspring self‐regulation. Prior work has demonstrated associations between maternal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and infant respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a parasympathetic biomarker associated with emotional and behavioral self‐regulation. The present study examined these associations and additional potential pathways including children's violence exposure and maternal psychopathology among 123 biological mother‐child dyads. Families were low‐income and oversampled for violence exposure; children were 3–5 years old. RSA was examined during dyadic interaction using latent growth curve modeling (LGCM). On average, females exhibited greater RSA reactivity. Greater RSA withdrawal across the interaction was associated with greater child negative affect during the interaction, linking RSA reactivity to concurrent child behavior. Consistent with previous findings among infants, high maternal ACEs were associated with lower child RSA at task initiation but not with RSA reactivity across the interaction. Findings suggest that the association between high maternal ACEs and a lower set point for offspring RSA persists into the early childhood period, beyond the influence of maternal psychopathology and children's own violence exposure. These data provide further evidence for the biological embedding of maternal early adversity across generations as well as for the relevance of RSA to child behavioral regulation.