Maternal Depression and Infant Behavioral Problems: The Moderating Role of Infant Stress Reactivity

• In Event: Examining Parental Effects on Risks for Child Psychopathology: The Role of Psychophysiological Markers

Abstract

Maternal depression is a pivotal risk factor for behavioral problems for young children (Edwards & Hans, 2015), with maternal depression’s detrimental impact on parenting quality cited a key mechanism underlying this link (Bernard et al., 2018). Nevertheless, not all children of depressed mothers are equally impacted, and research investigating protective and risk factors for children with depressed parents is warranted. Both the biological sensitivity to context (Boyce & Ellis, 2005) and the differential susceptibility hypotheses (Belsky & Pluess, 2009) argue that effects of environmental factors on child outcomes are dependent on the child’s susceptibility to context. The current study examined infants’ cortisol awakening response (CAR), a physiological indicator of stress reactivity and an index of individual sensitivity to the environment, as a moderator of linkages between mothers’ depressive symptoms and infant behavior problems. Drawing from the biological sensitivity and differential susceptibility hypotheses, it was predicted that maternal depressive symptoms would more strongly predict infant behavioral problems, for better and for worse, among infants with greater CAR (i.e. with greater biological sensitivity to context), than among infants with lower CAR.

Data at 12, 18 and 24 months were drawn from an NICHD-funded study focusing on parenting and infant development. Families with healthy, full-term infants (N = 114, 46.7% male) were recruited. At each occasion, mothers reported their depressive symptoms via the depression subscale of the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90–R) ( Derogatis, 1994), and reported their infants’ externalizing and internalizing problems via the Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (ITSEA; Carter & Briggs-Gowan, 2006). At each occasion, infant saliva samples at wakeup and 30 minutes later were collected on one day. Cortisol values were log-transformed, and area under the curve with respect to increase (AUCi;Pruessner et al., 2003) was calculated as the indicator of infant CAR.

Multilevel modeling was conducted to examine the interactive effect of maternal depression and infant CAR on infant behavioral problems. Child age, gender, wake-up time, and family income were controlled. Higher maternal depression was associated with higher infant externalizing behaviors reported by mothers. Importantly, infant CARAUCi moderated associations between maternal depression and infant externalizing behaviors (Table 1 and Figure 1). Among infants with higher CARAUCi, higher levels of maternal depressive symptoms were predictive of higher levels of infant externalizing behaviors, whereas lower levels of maternal depressive symptoms were predictive of lower infant externalizing behaviors. In contrast, among infants with lower CARAUCi, there was no association between maternal depressive symptoms and externalizing behaviors. No significant main or interactive effects were found in predicting infant internalizing behaviors.

These results for infant externalizing behaviors were consistent with the differential susceptibility and biological sensitivity hypotheses. Infants with greater biological sensitivity to context were more sensitive, for better and for worse, to the caregiving environments created by their mothers as predicted by maternal depressive symptoms. More broadly, findings point to the importance of considering individual child characteristics to understand more fully the impact of caregiving environments on children’s outcomes and the reasons some children may be more resilient than others to depressogenic parenting environments.

Authors

• Liu Bai, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Presenting Author

• Douglas M Teti, The Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author