Abnormal physiological and behavioral responses to stress as a result of early life stress may predispose children to adverse mental health consequences, such as PTSD, in response to new traumatic events during adolescence and adulthood. Research also indicates that maternal stress in the prenatal period may affect biobehavioral alterations in the offspring. Interestingly, infants who experience physiological hyperreactivity do not necessarily display heightened behavioral distress, and the regulation of distress may be associated with high cortisol reactivity. More work is needed to understand how physiological and behavioral components of the stress response system are integrated. The current study examined whether 12-month-old infants exposed to specific stressful events, intimate partner violence (IPV) prenatally and/or postnatally, compared to nonexposed infants, display a distinct pattern of behavior and cortisol reactivity when undergoing a laboratory stress task. Latent profile analysis was used to create profiles of infants' (N=182) behavioral and cortisol responses; a three-class solution emerged. While prenatal IPV predicted membership in a profile characterized by high cortisol reactivity, emotion reactivity and regulation did not distinguish the groups. Post-hoc analyses indicated that exposure to both pre- and postnatal IPV is associated with cortisol reactivity and emotion stability. Thus, while exposure to prenatal IPV alone may be a risk factor for physiological reactivity, exposure to chronic IPV in the prenatal and postnatal period may be more likely to affect the regulation of emotional responses. Findings are discussed in relation to the Emotional Security Hypothesis.
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