3-034 - Child-Directed and Bidirectional Parent-Child Effects Involving Maternal Mental Health

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Maternal anxiety and depression symptoms are prevalent during early childhood and linked to greater anxiety and internalizing problems in offspring. However, despite calls to do so, investigations of child-directed effects in developmental psychopathology models of outcomes remain sparse, limiting the empirical knowledge base and intervention efforts for maternal mental health. Thus, the proposed symposium coalesces research from three distinct laboratories with different samples (community, clinical) and multiple methods of analysis to inform the development of a transactional model of parent-child risk in which mothers and children influence each other both behaviorally and through biological mechanisms.
The first talk provides evidence for bidirectional relations between maternal social anxiety and toddlers’ risk for social anxiety (inhibited temperament), using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model framework, and describes the moderating role of SES on “partner” paths. The second talk describes a study of child-directed effects on maternal perinatal anxiety, showing that mothers’ anxiety shows different patterns of change pre- to postpartum depending on both mothers’ perceptions of infant negativity and infant cortisol reactivity. The third talk addresses bidirectional effects between mother and infant respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and how they differ between mothers with versus without postpartum depression, over the course of cognitive behavioral therapy. Our discussant will provide integration among and raise questions relevant to the talks to facilitate discussion with the audience.

Sub Unit

• Developmental Psychopathology

Chair

• Elizabeth J Kiel, Miami University

Discussant

• Louis Schmidt, McMaster University

Individual Presentations

• Transactional Risk for Social Anxiety in Mother-Toddler Pairs - Presenting Author: Elizabeth J Kiel, Miami University; Non-Presenting Author: Anne Kalomiris, Miami University

• Child Characteristics Modulate Trajectories of Pre- to Postpartum Maternal Anxiety - Presenting Author: Rebecca Brooker, Texas A&M; Non-Presenting Author: Sejal Mistry, Texas A&M University

• Physiological influences within mother-infant dyads following cognitive behavioral therapy for postpartum depression - Presenting Author: John Krzeczkowski, McMaster; Non-Presenting Author: Louis Schmidt, McMaster University; Non-Presenting Author: Ryan J. Van Lieshout, McMaster University