Infant colic is estimated to occur in approximately 20-30% of all infants born annually. Anecdotal reports suggest that excessive infant crying is an antecedent in child maltreatment and research documents extremes in physiologic responses of known child abusers. Over 3 million children will be abused this year and 2,000 will die as a result of that abuse. The relationship between infant crying and physiologic parent's response has not been examined with a prospective, longitudinal design. Furthermore, the effect of infant crying and parent's physiologic response on the potential for abuse is unknown. Lastly, the influences of these factors on the parent-infant relationship, especially within families who subsist within a harsh environment, are not known. Initial studies by the investigator support that there are newborn predictors of infant colic and that the excessive crying of infant colic influences the developing parent-child relationship in middle-class populations. This five-year prospective study is designed to accomplish the specific aims, which are for a sample of African-American, urban families: (1) examine relationships among factors immediate to the parent-infant ecology, including infant crying propensity, parental physiologic response, social support, family functioning and child abuse potential, and the parent-infant relationship; (2) evaluate child abuse potential and the adequacy of the parent-infant relationship in families where extremes exist in the parent's response and/or infant crying; (3) further assess the use of the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (BNBAS) to predict infant colic in newborns and its association to the parent's physiologic response; (4) delineate the human and environmental factors that predict infant crying propensity; and (5) evaluate a model of the causal linkages between and among exogenous, moderating, and endogenous variables. A total sample of 200 low and low-middle SES, urban-residing women, their newborns and husbands or male partners will be recruited from public prenatal care settings. Data will be collected prenatally and during the infant's first year of life. Canonical correlation and multiple regression will be used to analyze the research hypotheses. Path analyses will be used to determine the logical significance of the causal linkages and explain the direct and moderating influences of the variables under study.
