Poster #15 - Perceived Stress and Emotion Regulation Among First-Time Mothers

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Biological Processes: Neuroscience and Genetics

Integrative Statement

For first-time mothers, changes during the postpartum period can bring joy and excitement but can also lead to stress due to new roles and responsibilities. It is important to understand how maternal stress influences emotion regulation capabilities, especially as it pertains to parenting success and challenges. Previous research highlights the importance of frontal cortical regions in facilitating effective emotion regulation (Ochsner, 2002), but few studies have investigated neural regulation of emotion among postpartum women. Early parenting relies heavily on emotion regulation capabilities, as mothers are responsible for regulating both their emotional state and that of their infant (Rutherford et al., 2015). Feelings of being overwhelmed can adversely impact parenting outcomes, but the ways in which perceived stress influences mothers’ neural regulation of emotion have not been investigated.

The present study assessed 60 women an average of 4.58 months (SD = 1.97) following the birth of her first child. We employed a functional neuroimaging (fMRI) approach to investigate the relation between perceived stress (PSS; Cohen et al., 1983) and neural activation during emotion regulation. We utilized a well-established Emotion Regulation Task (ERT) in which participants were instructed to experience their natural emotional state (Maintain) or to decrease the intensity of their negative affect by using cognitive reappraisal (Reappraise) while viewing negative images (Phan et al., 2005). Outside of the scanner, we assessed mothers’ everyday emotion regulation styles (ERQ; Gross & John, 2003) and their positive and negative feelings towards parenting (Kim et al., 2013).

Elevated perceived stress was associated with more reports of using suppressive expression (r(60) = .294, p = .024) and fewer reports of cognitive reappraisal (r(60) = -.273, p = .036) during everyday emotional coping. Whole-brain analysis revealed a two-way interaction of perceived stress x condition (reappraise, maintain) in the right frontopolar prefrontal cortex (BA 10; x, y, z = 42, 47, 6; k = 99) at p < .05 cluster-wise corrected. This finding remained when covarying for postpartum months and income-to-needs ratio (INR). Higher perceived stress was associated with increased activity during reappraise compared to maintain. Heightened relative activity was further associated with endorsing more negative words about the experience of parenting (r(60) = .301, p = .020).

Findings demonstrate that first-time mothers experiencing high levels of stress exhibit greater relative recruitment of the right frontopolar PFC when engaging in effortful emotion regulation. This may suggest greater effort in utilizing emotion regulation strategies, as reflected in mothers’ reports of less everyday use of reappraisal strategies. These findings complement prior research (Johnstone et al., 2007) suggesting that distressed individuals exhibit greater, but counterproductive relative recruitment of the right PFC during efforts to reappraise negative emotional stimuli. Further, this study demonstrates that this pattern of activation is associated with more negative feelings toward parenting. Mothers experiencing high levels of stress may have more difficulties employing effortful emotion regulation strategies, which are further related to difficulties in the adaptation to parenthood. Future research should continue to examine effective emotion regulation strategies and inform treatment interventions for highly stressed postpartum mothers.

Authors

• Leah Grande, University of Denver
  Presenting Author

• Pilyoung Kim, University of Denver
  Non-Presenting Author