Poster #98 - Programming effects of prenatal inter-partner maladjustment on infants’ postnatal regulatory physiology

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Family Context & Processes

Integrative Statement

Introduction: Interest in the development of emotion regulation during early childhood has expanded beyond the infant-caregiver context to include inter-parental relationship dynamics. Indicators of adjustment, such as marital satisfaction or levels of disagreement, have been associated with children’s development (Morris et al. 2007). Furthermore, more extreme forms of inter-partner maladjustment, i.e., verbal and physical conflict, have likewise been linked to more severe child dysregulation (Jouriles & McDonald, 2015). To date, however, most work linking poor relationship dynamics with children’s emotion regulation has been conducted during the postpartum period (Kitzmann et al., 2003). Largely unexplored is the effect that poor interparental relationship dynamics might exert prenatally despite ample evidence that varying forms of maternal stress play a critical role in programming fetal central nervous system development.

With this gap in mind, the present study explored the associations between relationship quality during the prenatal period, including more extreme forms of inter-partner conflict, and infants’ regulatory physiology as indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), which we measured at five months postpartum.

Method: 87 low-SES primiparous women were recruited from a local WIC clinic and followed prospectively across the pre- to postnatal transition. Expectant mothers came into the laboratory during their third trimester of pregnancy to complete multiple relationship adjustment questionnaires, including the Conflicts Tactics Scale 2 (CTS-2), the Couple Communication Questionnaire (CCQ), and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS). At 5-months postpartum, mothers and infants came into the laboratory to participate in the Still-Face Paradigm (SFP) while being continuously monitored physiologically. For the present analysis, infants’ mean levels of RSA (a) during a resting, baseline episode and during the SFP’s (b) play episode, (c) neutral face episode, and (d) reunion episode were quantified. To control for postnatal Interparental dynamics, mothers completed the same battery of questionnaires at five months.

Results & Discussion: We used hierarchical regression models to test the hypothesis that inter-partner conflict during the prenatal period would have independent associations with infant physiology, RSA, while controlling for postnatal conflict and other theoretically motivated covariates e.g., maternal mood and infant temperament. As predicted, prenatal inter-partner conflict significantly predicted resting state RSA at 5 months (ß = .46, p < .001) (see Figure 1a).

Contrary to prediction, prenatal interparental conflict was not predictive of infant RSA during any of the SFP episodes. However, postnatal conflict significantly predicted infant physiology during the play episode of the SFP (ß = -.28, p = .04) (see Figure 1b) and moderately predicted infant physiology during the neutral face episode (ß = -.27, p =.07).

Additional analyses and our discussion will focus on the fact that our results suggest (1) that prenatal interparental conflict may already be conditioning trait-like aspects of infants’ autonomic nervous system, whereas (2) postnatal interparental conflict may better explain infants’ physiological responses during interpersonal interactions.

Authors

• Ana Carolina Hernandez, University of Oregon
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer C Ablow, University of Oregon
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jeffrey Measelle, University of Oregon
  Non-Presenting Author