Distress Tolerance and Emotion Regulation: Promoting Maternal Well-Being Across the Transition to Parenthood

SYNOPSIS

Objective. This study examined the association between newborns’ daily crying and five measures of new mothers’ emotional states. Design. One hundred seven new mothers responded via a one-time, anonymous, online survey that assessed their stress, well-being, emotion regulation, frustration, and coping skills. Mothers also reported their infant’s daily cry duration. Results. Average daily crying was related to mothers’ emotional experiences, and relations also existed among the five mental health measures. Regression models indicate the strongest predictors of frustration were infant’s average cry duration, maternal well-being, and infant’s health status at enrollment. Conclusion. Mental health professionals can support families through the normative, but often stressful, experience of their infant’s cries. However, a re-evaluation of the clinical criteria for excessive crying is needed, as the results suggest that mothers whose infants cry considerably less than the widely used Wessel’s 3-hour-per-day criterion for excessive crying experience significant negative mental health.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank the families who participated in this work as well as the community partners who graciously collaborated with them to recruit this sample.