Secure Attachment Parenting

By Ann Wlazelek - Illustration by Laurindo Feliciano

Children who feel safe and secure with their mother by their first birthday have a better chance of growing up happy, healthy and better prepared for school, experts say. And, studies show, mothers can foster such a “secure attachment” by sensing and responding to their infants’ needs for comfort or encouragement with a sweet tone of voice and affectionate comments. 

But in racially diverse and low-income families, a mother’s sensitivity does not appear to be a key predictor of secure attachment, according to research by Susan S. Woodhouse, associate professor of Counseling Psychology at Lehigh University. Woodhouse is challenging some of those long-held beliefs and exploring the early roots of mental health and educational disparities in a five-year, federally funded research project. 

Prior studies examined primarily white, middle-income families. When Woodhouse started looking at moms of different racial and ethnic backgrounds who had little money or help, she found many moms whose parenting styles appeared insensitive, yet still made their babies feel safe and secure. 

“Clearly, there is a gap in our understanding of what parenting behaviors really make the most difference in promoting a secure attachment,” she said. To find answers and close the gap, Woodhouse was awarded a $2.1 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the federal government’s National Institutes of Health. 

Her grant, titled Caregiving, Attachment, and Regulation of Emotion, or CARE, will observe 200 primarily low-income women and their infants at 6 months and 12 months of age to determine what behaviors lead to a safe and secure attachment and what actions detract from it. 

“We hope to learn what Mom behaviors make the most difference in predicting baby outcomes,” said Woodhouse, the study’s principal investigator. “If we want interventions that work when there are limited resources, we want to focus on what matters most.” 

One of the reasons Woodhouse became so intrigued with this field of study is personal. In addition to being the mother of a 7-year-old daughter, Woodhouse was considered a “fussy baby” by her own mother. Woodhouse said her mother spoke only Spanish when she immigrated to the United States from Madrid and felt isolated. 

“Hearing my mom talk about the lack of support she faced made me want to reach out to other moms,” she said. 

The study began in March 2012, when Woodhouse was on the faculty at Pennsylvania State University, and months later followed her to Lehigh, where she expects to finish the project by February 2017. With more than 100 moms and babies so far enrolled, Woodhouse has begun to analyze the data. 

She is concentrating on what appeared to work best in earlier research with a smaller group: the simple act of a mom holding her child “chest-to-chest” to calm the infant’s crying, even if the mom didn’t do it every time her child cried. 

“My new discovery is the key importance of chest-to-chest soothing when infants cry,” Woodhouse said. “Even if a mother is making a lot of mistakes and being insensitive along the way, as long as she finally relents and comes through in the end by soothing the baby chest-to-chest, that baby will be secure. She doesn’t even need to do it every time. As long as she does it at least 50 percent of the time, that baby will still be secure.” 

In fact, mothers can compensate for not soothing the child chest-to chest at least half of the time the child cries. Babies can still feel secure if the moms display what Woodhouse and staffers call “calm connectedness.” For example, babies were secure if the moms made themselves available to look at their child when their babies were looking at them or carried their babies on their hip while doing other things in the house or garden. 

CARE also is assessing some parent behaviors Woodhouse found in prior research that worked against a secure attachment. Woodhouse found some year-old infants were unable to feel secure after their mothers had purposely scared them by yelling, threatening to leave or lifting them repeatedly high into the air. In one example, Woodhouse said, a mother screamed “boo” to try to stop the child from crying. 

Being able to find security and contentment in the first year of life is important, experts say, because it provides a basis for future relationships. Insecurity in infants, if not altered, can lead to poor behavior, problems with school readiness and mental-health problems.