Prenatal Depression and Infant Social-Emotional Problems: The Mediating Role of Maternal Emotion Dysregulation

• In Event: Parental mental health

Abstract

BACKGROUND: A child’s ability to regulate their social and emotional behavior has significant implications for later psychological well-being and psychosocial functioning (Bornstein et al., 2010; Jones et al., 2015). One factor shown to disrupt the parent-child relationship and impair child development is parental psychopathology (Goodman et al., 2011). Specifically, maternal depression has been linked to poorer infant social-emotional outcomes including increased fussiness, avoidant temperament, and decreased positive emotion expression (Field, 2010). Interestingly, maternal emotion dysregulation, a transdiagnostic feature of internalizing disorders like depression (Hostinar & Cicchetti, 2019), is also linked to infant social-emotional problems including infant behavior problems and child emotion dysregulation (Leerkes et al., 2020; Hoffman et al., 2006). As such, emotion dysregulation may be a mechanism through which maternal depression disrupts infant social-emotional development. The current study examines maternal postpartum emotion dysregulation as a mediator between maternal prenatal depression and infant social-emotional problems.

METHODS: Participants included 59 women and their infants (44.1% White) recruited during pregnancy at 30 weeks’ gestation from a diverse, community sample. At 30-weeks’ gestation, participants completed the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS; Cox et al., 1987). In a postpartum follow-up survey administered in Summer 2020 to capture family functioning during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, participants completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004) and the Brief Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (BITSEA; Briggs-Gowan & Carter, 2002). Infants ranged in age from 3 to 21 months (M=11.5 months).

RESULTS: Preliminary analyses suggested positive correlations between prenatal depressive symptoms and postpartum emotion dysregulation, and between postpartum emotion dysregulation and infant social-emotional problems (Table 1). Mediation analysis was conducted using Mplus 8.0. Results showed higher prenatal depressive symptoms were associated with higher postpartum emotion dysregulation, and that higher postpartum emotion dysregulation was associated with increased infant social-emotional problems. There was a significant indirect association between prenatal depressive symptoms and infant social-emotional problems through postpartum emotion dysregulation (IE: ab = .31; 95% CI = [.01, .91]). See Figure 1.

CONCLUSION: Findings suggest that maternal emotion dysregulation may be one mechanism through which maternal depression is linked to infant social-emotional development. Specifically, high levels of maternal depression may inhibit mothers’ emotion regulation capabilities, and in turn, contribute to problems with infant social-emotional behavior. The findings have implications for identifying infants at risk for social-emotional problems by screening mothers for prenatal depression as well as emotion dysregulation. Further, interventions targeted at emotion regulation skills (Barlow et al., 2018) may be helpful in buffering the negative effects of maternal depression on infant social-emotional outcomes.

Authors

• Kristin Fields, Oklahoma State University - Stillwater
  Presenting Author

• Gina Erato, Oklahoma State University - Stillwater

• Ashley N Quigley, Oklahoma State University - Stillwater

• Elizabeth Hinckley, Oklahoma State University - Stillwater

• Samantha Addante, Oklahoma State University - Stillwater

• Lucia Ciciolla, Oklahoma State University - Stillwater