Peer-reviewed article
Maternal Smartphone Use and Regulatory Disorders of the Infant: A Post Hoc Analysis of the SKKIPPI Cohort Study.
Anne Berghöfer, Annika Luise Wrenger, Julia Fricke, Marie Bolster, Lars Kuchinke et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined whether maternal smartphone use during parent-child interactions is linked to infant regulatory disorders—difficulties in sleeping, feeding, and excessive crying. Researchers analysed data from a German cohort study of nearly 6000 families and found that while frequent smartphone use was associated with more regulatory problems, the strongest link was between maternal stress when interrupted during smartphone use and poor infant outcomes. The findings suggest that how mothers feel about their phone use matters more than how often they use it.
Key points
- 61.5% of frequent smartphone users reported infant regulatory disorders compared to 41.6% of infrequent users
- Maternal stress when interrupted during smartphone use was consistently associated with worse infant outcomes: lower odds of easy feeding (OR 0.56) and easier sleep (OR 0.85), and higher odds of excessive crying (OR 1.37)
- Infant regulatory disorders based on standardized questionnaire were associated with elevated maternal stress during smartphone use (OR 1.87)
- The association persisted after adjustment for maternal psychiatric disorder, education, single parent status, and age
- Emotional and contextual factors around smartphone use appear more important than frequency alone
Limitations
This is a post hoc analysis of observational data with cross-sectional design, so causality cannot be established—maternal stress and infant regulatory difficulties may have a bidirectional relationship. The study relies on maternal self-report of both smartphone use and infant behaviour, which may be subject to recall bias and social desirability bias.
Abstract
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Infant regulatory disorders (RDs) describe the infants' difficulties in regulating their physiological and emotional states, manifesting in problems with sleeping, feeding, or excessive crying. A post hoc analysis of data from the German SKKIPPI cohort study investigated the association of maternal smartphone use and the occurrence of RDs. METHODS: In a randomly drawn sample from three local population registers, a self-administered online questionnaire was used to collect basic sociodemographic data, smartphone use behavior and the mother's subjective perception of the infant's RD. In case of psychosocial burden of the mother, a structured psychiatric-diagnostic interview (M.I.N.I.) was conducted and the Questionnaire for Crying, Feeding and Sleeping (SFS) was completed. RESULTS: Of the 5954 parent-child dyads completing the online-questionnaire, 3.7% reported frequent smartphone use while interacting with the child, compared with 5.8% of the 972 mother-child dyads in the psychiatric interview. Among frequent smartphone users, 61.5% indicated RD compared to 41.6% of the infrequent users (p = 0.005). After adjustment for confounding by psychiatric disorder, educational level, single parent status, and age, perceived stress when interrupted during smartphone use was consistently associated with less favorable outcomes (OR of feeding easy 0.56, 95% CI 0.42; 0.75; OR of falling asleep easily 0.85, 95% CI 0.73; 0.99; OR of excessive crying 1.37, 95% CI 1.04; 1.81). RD based on the SFS was associated with elevated stress during smartphone use (OR 1.87, 95% CI 1.35; 2.58). CONCLUSIONS: Maternal stress when smartphone use is interrupted is more strongly associated with early regulatory difficulties than frequency of smartphone use alone, indicating the importance of also considering emotional and contextual factors in the analysis of technology use during parent-child interactions.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Maternal smartphone use during parent-child interactions
- Population
- German parent-child dyads; main analysis 5954 completing online questionnaire, subset of 972 in psychiatric interview
Key finding
Frequent smartphone use associated with 61.5% reporting regulatory disorders vs 41.6% in infrequent users (p=0.005)