Maternal Adverse and Protective Childhood Experiences Predict Infant Sleep Outcomes

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Family Context & Processes

Abstract

Background: Infant sleep quality has increasingly become a predictor of long-term healthy development in children. For instance, infant sleep affects socio-emotional development, neurodevelopment, attention regulation, and physical health (Lemura et al., 2016; Alamian et al., 2016; Sadeh et al., 2015). Despite the current emphasis on infant sleep research, little is known about relevant maternal factors preceding birth that may affect infant’s sleep quality. Maternal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) may have a negative intergenerational impact on infant sleep, as they predict infant physical and socioemotional health and infant physiological regulatory capacities (Madigan et al., 2017; Gray et al., 2017). More recently, researchers have discovered that maternal benevolent childhood experiences (BCEs) may buffer maternal ACEs and prenatal psychopathology and stress (Narayan et al., 2018) and thus it is possible that they also benefit infant outcomes. There are, to our knowledge, no studies identifying the intergenerational effects maternal BCEs, in conjunction with ACEs, can have on offspring health, including sleep quality. Uncovering associations between maternal childhood experiences and infant sleep in the next generation may help identify distal maternal factors that construct the intergenerational pathway(s) from which maternal experiences shape child neurodevelopment.
Methods: Pregnant women (N= 142; 15% African American/Black, 47% non-Hispanic White, 28% Latinx, 19% other race) were recruited to participate in a longitudinal study. Mothers completed self-report measures assessing ACEs (M=2.65, SD=2.33) and BCEs (M= 8.83, SD= 1.69) during their third trimester. At six months postpartum, mothers completed a measure of infant sleep, including bedtime routine, and perceptions of sleep problems. We conducted regression analyses to determine whether maternal ACEs and BCEs predicted infant sleep. We also tested maternal BCEs as a moderator of the association between maternal ACEs and infant sleep.
Results: Maternal ACEs and BCEs were independently associated with infant sleep bedtime routine (β =-.10, SE= .036, p= .006; β =.141, SE= .064, p= .03), respectively. Infants of mothers who experienced a high number of ACEs during childhood had a less structured bedtime routine. Conversely, infants of mothers who experienced a higher level of BCEs during childhood had a more structure bedtime routine. Maternal BCEs also moderated the relation between maternal ACEs and infant bedtime routine (β =-.048, SE= .021, p= .022). Maternal ACEs were also associated with maternal perceptions of problematic infant sleep (β =.038, SE= .019, p= .04).
Discussion: Findings suggest that mothers who reported higher levels of BCEs have a more structured bedtime routine for their infants, even if they also reported a high amount of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). For future directions, we will study various maternal mental health indices as possible mediators through which the relation between ACEs, BCEs, and infant sleep quality occur. This information will help developmental scientists identify the intergenerational mechanisms that impact infant sleep outcomes, which in turn, may affect long-term socioemotional, cognitive, neurodevelopmental, and physical outcomes.

Authors

• Melissa Nevarez-Brewster, University of Denver
  Presenting Author

• Özlü Aran, University of Denver
  Non-Presenting Author

• Angela J. Narayan, University of Denver
  Non-Presenting Author

• Benjamin Hankin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elysia Davis, University of Denver
  Non-Presenting Author