Pregnancy-Specific Anxiety Linked With Infant Positive Affectivity Among Women With Reduced Emotional Suppression

• In Event: Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Topic - Developmental Psychopathology

Abstract

Pregnancy-specific anxiety, which refers to specific fears related to the pregnancy, has been linked with infant fearfulness, activity level, and sadness. These effects remain after controlling for other forms of prenatal distress, which suggests that pregnancy-specific anxiety has a unique influence on infant temperament (Henrichs et al., 2009). However, few studies have examined how pregnancy-specific anxiety relates to positive affectivity during infancy. This is important to consider, as reduced positive affect in the infant could weaken the mother-child relationship and increase the risk for internalizing symptoms (Hayden et al., 2006). Prenatal internalizing symptoms have been associated with reduced positive affect during infancy (Coplan et al., 2005), making it critical to consider this construct along with pregnancy-specific anxiety.

Because pregnancy-specific anxiety and prenatal internalizing symptoms each predict non-optimal temperament profiles, it is important to examine whether emotion regulation strategies used to manage this distress serve a protective function. Maternal emotional suppression during the postpartum period has been associated with lower well-being, higher disease risk, as well as increased negative affect in the infant, which suggests that this approach may represent a maladaptive coping strategy (Edwards et al., 2017). However, little is known regarding how emotional suppression during pregnancy may relate to infant temperament. Women who suppress their emotions less frequently may have lower levels of cortisol due to managing their emotions in a healthy way, which could reduce the amount of stress hormones that pass to the fetus (Van den Bergh et al., 2017). We therefore anticipated reduced emotional suppression to attenuate the adverse effects of pregnancy-specific anxiety and prenatal internalizing symptoms on positive affectivity during infancy.

Secondary analyses were performed with existing data from a study examining how psychosocial stress, nutrition, and physical health during pregnancy influence infant temperament (N=64). Participants completed depression, general anxiety, and pregnancy-specific anxiety measures during their third trimester of pregnancy. At two months postpartum, mothers responded to a questionnaire assessing their infant’s temperament. Mothers also completed depression and anxiety measures to control for internalizing symptoms during the postnatal period.

All of the models were just-identified (AIC = 1968.61, BIC = 2045.25). Emotional suppression was found to moderate the association between pregnancy-specific anxiety and high intensity pleasure in the infant at two months (Figure 1). That is, among women who used low (B = -0.28, p = .001) or moderate (B = -0.13, p = .01) levels of suppression, reduced pregnancy-specific anxiety was associated with increased pleasure toward more novel or complex stimuli, such as being tossed. Emotional suppression, prenatal internalizing symptoms, and pregnancy-specific anxiety did not relate to the overall positive affectivity factor or any of the other subscales. These results indicate that reduced emotional suppression attenuates the adverse effects of pregnancy-specific anxiety on high intensity pleasure in infants at two months, which suggests that infants would benefit from pregnant women limiting how frequently they utilize this emotion regulation strategy. Future studies should determine whether these effects persist into early childhood as well as examine the influence of other emotion regulation strategies on infant temperament.

Authors

• Jennifer Mattera, Washington State University
  Presenting Author

• Sara F Waters, Washington State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Chris Connolly, Washington State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Maria Amy Gartstein, Washington State University
  Non-Presenting Author