Oral Abstracts

Abstract

Background: Infants whose mothers use food to soothe are at greater risk for later emotional eating and childhood obesity. Responsive parenting (RP) interventions can promote alternative soothing strategies for infant distress but have primarily been tested in White motherinfant dyads. Methods: The Sleep SAAF (Strong African American Families) trial tested an RP intervention vs. safety control for primiparous African American mothers (n=212). Interventions were delivered at home visits at 3 and 8 weeks postpartum. The RP intervention was informed by the INSIGHT curriculum; information regarding infant crying and soothing included distinguishing hunger from other reasons for crying and promoting non‐feeding soothing strategies such as the “5 S's” (swaddling, shushing/white noise, sucking on a pacifier, side/stomach position, swinging). RP mothers were also given a white noise machine. Mothers reported on use of 3 food and 15 non‐food soothing strategies using the Babies Need Soothing questionnaire at 8 and 16 weeks postpartum. Logistic regression was used to examine study group differences in soothing strategy use. Results: At 8 and 16 weeks, RP mothers used a greater total number of non‐food soothing strategies than control mothers (p<0.05). At 8 weeks, RP mothers were more likely than control mothers to soothe their baby with white noise (OR=10.3, 95% CI: 3.4‐30.7) or by taking a walk in a stroller/ride in the car (OR=2.5, CI: 1.2‐5.2). At 16 weeks, RP mothers were more likely than control mothers to soothe with white noise (OR=8.1, CI: 2.7‐24.4) or moving baby to a quiet, calm room (OR=3.3, CI: 1.0‐10.7). Though soothing with breastmilk/ formula did not differ by group, RP mothers were less likely than control mothers to soothe their baby with other beverages (OR=0.4, CI: 0.2‐0.8) or other foods (OR=0.5, CI: 0.2‐1.0) at 16 weeks. Conclusions: An RP intervention for first‐time African American mothers increased use of non‐food soothing strategies and reduced use of age‐inappropriate foods/beverages to soothe.