Emotion Regulation And Maternal Nurturance Among Pregnant Women Who Are Opioid Dependent

Abstract

Effective emotion regulation is important for parenting, but substance-using parents such as opioid-dependent mothers may have poor emotion regulation that interferes with parenting (Rutherford et al., 2015). The current study examined associations between emotion dysregulation, maternal nurturance, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) among mothers with opioid dependence. Compared with stronger self-reported emotion regulation, weaker emotion regulation was associated with lower resting state RSA (r = -0.32, p = 0.03). Correlations among other variables of interest were not significant. Future studies should explore associations between other physiological measures such as cardiac pre-ejection period and parenting outcomes and consider different predictors such as adult attachment states of mind.