Indices for maternal/family anxiety and disruption related to infant apnea and home monitoring.

: Maternal anxiety and family disruption are the two problems most often reported for families caring for an infant with apnea and inhome monitoring. With a diagnosis of apparent life-threatening event (ALTE) related to apnea, the parents have experienced finding their infant limp, motionless, appearing to not breathe, and with a color described as pale, blue, or marble white. Chronic anxiety in care-giving parents results in maternal depression. A growing body of evidence supports the view that both maternal anxiety and depression are potentially detrimental to the emotional development of infants. The purpose of this work was to investigate factors that impact maternal coping and parental adaptation outcomes related to infant apnea. The theoretical models for development of this review are anxiety and its disorders, and the family resiliency model of stress, adjustment, and adaptation.