A Caregiver–Infant Interaction Framework to Guide Nursing Approaches to Supporting Early Relational Health

Early Relational Health, as prioritized by the American Academy of Pediatrics, emphasizes relationships that are safe, stable, and nurturing. The mechanisms that cultivate or harm such relationships are moment-to-moment caregiver–infant interactions (eg, actions or behaviors between 2 partners), which are influenced by the larger socioecological environment. The concepts that explore caregiver–infant interaction are plentiful, but how these concepts relate to each other and to the emerging field of early relational health remains underexplored. This theory development paper responds to this gap, proposing a framework grounded in Chinn and Kramer’s (2023) theory generation and evaluation process. Additionally, the manuscript explores how nurses can support caregiver–infant dyads during their interactions, meaning-making processes, relational outcomes, and socioecological realities.