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Maternal health and child development during early infancy

Fri, April 9, 1:10 to 2:40pm EDT (1:10 to 2:40pm EDT), Virtual

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Parental mental health difficulties during the perinatal period and early infancy have serious implications for child development, due to their impact on parental wellbeing and parenting practices. Thus, parental mental health problems are a risk factor for child development.
This symposium addresses this topic by presenting data from Chile, a country with a high prevalence of mental health problems.
The first paper provides a general context by presenting trends in perinatal psychosocial risk factors and perinatal depressive symptoms during the past decade in Chile from a public health perspective, using data from over two million pregnant women.
In the second paper, the authors examine the association between maternal mental health difficulties, parental stress, child development (i.e. cognitive, language, and temperament development), and parenting practices. This study involved 1162 13 months old children and their families, who participated in the first wave (2019) of the "First Thousand Days Study".
Lastly, the third paper explores the association between maternal mental health difficulties and child development by focusing on breastfeeding practices, which have a wide range of health and emotional benefits for childbearing women and their infants. The authors followed 229 from the third trimester of gestation to 3 and 6 months postpartum and found that both maternal depression and anxiety negatively impacted exclusive breastfeeding practices.
By combining these studies, this symposium offers a general overview of the association between maternal mental health and child development in Chile, combining a public health perspective with smaller, psychologically oriented work.

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