Poster #56 - Toward a better understanding of the psychological consequences of perinatal losses for mothers and fathers

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Introduction: The loss of an expected child can be traumatizing for men and women, placing new parents at risk for mental health complications and stress (Bennett et al., 2005; Turton et al., 2006). Parental mental health problems negatively affect parent-child relationships (Theut et al., 1992; Velders et al., 2001) and child development (Koutra et al., 2017). Most women will become pregnant in the year following a lost pregnancy (Lamb, 2002), but the psychological consequences of prior perinatal losses after the birth of a subsequent healthy infant are not well documented, especially among fathers. Thus, this study aims to examine the psychological symptoms associated with a history of perinatal loss among mothers and fathers after the birth of a subsequent child.

Method: This project is part of a larger study involving 206 parents (103 fathers) recruited when their infant was 6 months. Of these, 32% reported a previous perinatal loss. Participants were asked to complete the Symptom Checklist (SCL; Derogatis et al., 1983), which measures nine categories of symptoms: somatization, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism. Participants were also asked to complete the Parenting Stress Index (PSI; Abidin, 1995) measuring child, parent, and situational characteristics associated with the presence of parenting stress and dysfunctional parenting.

Results: Regression analyses controlling for parents’ age, income and education were performed to test the associations between perinatal loss and psychological symptoms among new parents (Table 1). They show that mothers’ obsessive-compulsive symptoms (b = .33, p < .01), interpersonal sensitivity (b = .24, p = .03), phobic anxiety (b = .50, p < .01), severity of psychological symptoms (b = .21, p = .05) and total number of mental health symptoms (b = .27, p = .01) increased with the number of previous perinatal losses experienced. They also revealed significant associations between the number of perinatal losses and somatization (b = .31, p < .01), as well as with anxiety symptoms (b = .28, p = .01) among fathers. T-tests comparing the levels of parenting stress of parents who have experienced a loss and those who have not revealed higher child-related stress (p = .03) and higher global score of parenting stress (p < .01) for mothers who have experienced a loss (see Figure 1). No difference was found among fathers.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that psychological symptoms and parenting stress are more prevalent among mothers who have experienced a previous perinatal loss, even 6 months after the birth of a new child, and highlight the importance of offering psychological support to these mothers. While bereaved fathers did not report more stress, their anxiety symptoms increased with the number of perinatal losses. Thus, anxiety might be an important target of intervention among parents after a perinatal loss.

Authors

• Olivier Aubuchon, School of Psychology, Laval University, Quebec, QC, Canada
  Presenting Author

• Sabrina Faleschini, School of Psychology, Laval University, Quebec, QC, Canada
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laurence Champeau, School of Psychology, Laval University, Quebec, QC, Canada
  Non-Presenting Author

• Célia Matte-Gagné, Laval University
  Non-Presenting Author