Applying Latent Growth Modelling to Examine Trajectories for Maternal and Paternal Wellbeing Across the Transition to Parenthood

• In Event: 3-203 - Development of Self-Regulation in Infancy and Toddlerhood

Integrative Statement

Background and Aims. Adverse effects of perinatal mood disturbance on infant development have been recorded since the time of the Ancient Greeks (Demand, 1994), but it was not until the 21st century that researchers began to shift away from a near-exclusive focus on mothers to consider the impact of postnatal depression in fathers (Ramchandani et al, 2005). This new research has advanced our understanding of the complex family processes that mediate the impact of perinatal mood disturbance on infant development (for a systematic review, see Sweeney & MacBeth, 2016). However, studies involving fathers have typically relied on unidimensional measures of either internalizing or externalizing problems; in addition, very few studies have adopted a dual focus on perinatal mood disturbance in both mothers and fathers. Moreover, while the general field of research on risk and resilience highlights the importance of chronicity of children’s exposure to adverse environments, researchers have, to our knowledge, yet to apply latent growth models to investigate whether wellbeing trajectories across the transition to parenthood help explain variability in the impact on child adjustment. The overarching aim of the current study was to address each of these gaps in the literature.

Method. Couples making the transition to parenthood were recruited from three sites (196 from Cambridge, UK; 120 from New York, USA and 120 from the Netherlands) as part of the New Fathers and Mothers Study (NewFAMS), which involved home-based observations of parent-child interactions (presented in a separate paper in this symposium). The majority of parents in each site were well-educated and affluent and retention rates were very high: across the three sites, 97% of eligible families completed at least two of the four home-visits. Using well-validated questionnaire measures (CESD, STAI, GHQ and CSI), both parents reported symptoms of depression and anxiety and rated their couple relationship quality at all four time-points (last trimester of pregnancy and 4-, 14- and 24-months). Where possible, both parents rated infant adjustment, using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire at 4-months, the Brief Inventory of Temperament and Socio-Emotional Adjustment (BITSEA) at 14-months and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) at 24-months. Using dyadic latent growth models, the intercept (i.e., prenatal anxiety and depression) and slope (i.e., changes in wellbeing across the study time-points) for both mothers and fathers were examined as predictors of infant behaviour and adjustment.

Results. Correlations are presented in Table 1. Figure 1 shows simplified path diagrams for the final longitudinal models for mothers and fathers. For both mothers and fathers, the association between prenatal wellbeing and children’s internalizing problems at 24-months was fully mediated by couple relationship quality. In contrast, mothers’ prenatal wellbeing showed a direct association with children’s externalizing problems at 24-months. Perhaps reflecting the strong temporal stability of individual differences in wellbeing for both mothers and fathers (mean r =.55); wellbeing trajectories did not show independent associations with either child internalizing or externalizing problems.

Group Authors

The New Fathers and Mothers Study

Authors

• Claire Hughes, University of Cambridge
  Presenting Author

• Rory Thomas Devine, University of Birmingham
  Non-Presenting Author

• Clancy Blair, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Judi Mesman, University of Leiden
  Non-Presenting Author