Intergenerational and Developmental Origins of Health: Maternal Prenatal Distress and Implications for Offspring Psychopathology

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

This symposium assembles multi-institutional scholars to present novel findings regarding the effects of maternal distress during pregnancy on offspring stress physiology and psychopathology. Despite burgeoning literature demonstrating impacts of prenatal distress on childhood mental and physical health outcomes, this line of inquiry rarely examines pre-pregnancy and postnatal influences simultaneously with prenatal distress. As the impacts of prenatal distress are likely shaped by maternal experiences prior to pregnancy and shape postnatal mental health and parenting behaviors, it is important to disentangle these influences on child psychopathology.

The first presentation investigates the simultaneous influence of maternal depression and exposure to synthetic glucocorticoids during pregnancy on infant HPA axis development, with careful consideration of alternative explanations in the postnatal period through testing whether associations are accounted for by maternal postpartum depression or parenting behaviors. The second presentation leverages a multi-site epidemiological two-generation cohort to examine the simultaneous contributions of maternal exposure to adversity during childhood and during pregnancy to offspring anxiety and depression; child biological sex and neighborhood quality were examined as potential moderators of these associations. The third presentation describes meta-analysis results across 45 longitudinal studies on the effects of maternal distress during pregnancy on externalizing problems in childhood and adolescence, with consideration for postnatal maternal distress.

Together, these talks underscore the importance of intergenerational considerations in the etiology of child psychopathology and prevention and intervention design. Cross-cutting themes and implications for research and policy will be discussed by a leading researcher of intergenerational and developmental origins of mental and physical health.

Sub Unit

• Family Context & Processes

Chair

• Amanda Norona-Zhou, University of California - San Francisco

Discussant

• Nicole R Bush, University of California - San Francisco

Individual Presentations

• Prenatal Maternal Depression Symptoms but Not Synthetic Glucocorticoids Predict Infant Cortisol Response: Exploring The Prenatal Determinants of Infant HPA Axis Functioning - Presenting Author: Danielle Swales, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• A Multi-Cohort Examination of the Independent Contributions of Maternal Childhood Adversity and Pregnancy Stressors to Children’s Anxiety and Depression - Presenting Author: Amanda Norona-Zhou, University of California - San Francisco

• Prenatal Stress and Externalizing Behaviors in Childhood and Adolescence: A Meta-analysis - Presenting Author: Irene Tung, California State University - Dominguez Hills