Prenatal Interventions to Promote Healthy Development in Early Childhood

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

This symposium assembles international experts to present and discuss interventions over pregnancy and their effects on physiological and behavioral child outcomes. There is correlational evidence for the impact of adverse prenatal environments on risky child development. There remains a need to investigate causal pathways and protective factors leading to healthy child outcomes. The current symposium leverages clinical trial approaches to these questions to allow for a better understanding of interventions to buffer the effects of prenatal environment. The first presentation introduces two studies: (1) a randomized controlled design to reduce maternal prenatal depression over pregnancy and examine the impact on child neurodevelopmental outcomes and (2) testing hypothesized relations between prenatal maternal depressive symptoms and infant temperamental characteristics and sleep difficulty. The second presentation evaluates physiological and behavioral reactivity and regulation among infants whose mothers participated in stress reduction clinical trial. The clinical trial tested a mindfulness intervention among a low income, ethnically and racially diverse sample. The third presentation evaluates the results of a clinical trial assessing the impact of maternal choline intake during pregnancy on early mental health symptoms among preschoolers. Taken as a whole, these talks underscore the importance of intervention studies during pregnancy as a way to directly test fetal programming of behavioral development and mental health. These presentations will be discussed by a leading researcher in the area of prenatal interventions, and risk and protective factors in the development of psychopathology.

Sub Unit

• Prevention and Interventions

Chair

• Özlü Aran, University of Denver

Discussant

• Sherryl Hope Goodman, Emory University

Individual Presentations

• Maternal Prenatal Depressive Symptoms, Intervention and Infant Development - Presenting Author: Ozlu Aran; Non-Presenting Author: Sarah Garcia, University of Denver; Non-Presenting Author: Nancy Grote, University Of Washington; Non-Presenting Author: Camille Hoffman, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus; Non-Presenting Author: Benjamin Hankin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Non-Presenting Author: Elysia Davis, University of Denver

• The Effects of a Prenatal Mindfulness Intervention on Infant Autonomic and Behavioral Reactivity and Regulation - Presenting Author: Amanda Norona-Zhou, University of California - San Francisco; Non-Presenting Author: Michael Coccia, University of California, San Francisco; Non-Presenting Author: Karen M. Jones-Mason, University of California, San Francisco; Non-Presenting Author: Abbey Alkon, University of California - San Francisco; Non-Presenting Author: Cassandra Vieten, John W Brick Foundation; Non-Presenting Author: Barbara Laraia, University of California, Berkeley; Non-Presenting Author: Elissa Epel, University of California, San Francisco; Non-Presenting Author: Nancy Adler, University of California, San Francisco; Non-Presenting Author: Nicole R Bush, University of California - San Francisco

• Prenatal Maternal Choline Associations with Offspring Development of Attention and Social Problems Through Age 4 - Presenting Author: Sharon K Hunter, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus; Non-Presenting Author: Camille Hoffman, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus; Non-Presenting Author: Robert Freedman, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus