Sensitive Fathering Buffers the Effects of Chronic Maternal Depression on Child Psychopathology

Parents' clinical depression and children's problem behaviors: A multi-level meta-analytic examination

BACKGROUND

Previous meta-analyses considering associations between parental depression (PD) and child symptoms have considered PD based primarily on self-report of depression symptoms. The present meta-analysis, in contrast, evaluated the effect of parents' clinically-diagnosed depressive disorders (PDD) on child internalizing and externalizing symptoms and considered both family- and study-level variables that influenced the strength of these effects.

METHODS

We examined 111 effect sizes nested in 40 studies including a clinical assessment of parents' major or persistent depressive disorder and measures of children's internalizing or externalizing behaviors published between 2000 and 2020. We used a multi-level meta-analytic framework to account for nesting of multiple effect sizes within studies.

RESULTS

PDD was associated with children's internalizing (weighted mean r = 0.211) and externalizing (weighted mean r = 0.204) behaviors. Family- and study-level variables moderated these relations, including the inclusion of fathers in the sample, the specific measure of internalizing behavior, reporting of diagnostic reliability, and informant for problem behaviors.

LIMITATIONS

Limitations include exclusive consideration of internalizing and externalizing symptoms (versus other symptom types or problems) and the limited number of father-only studies from which to base conclusions about the relative effect of maternal vs. paternal depression.

CONCLUSIONS

The similarity between the current findings and previous meta-analyses suggests that researchers studying the effects of PD may be able to bypass more exhaustive clinical interviews for less burdensome depression symptom inventories. Furthermore, our findings suggest that researchers and clinicians should consider how PD impacts not just child depressive symptoms, but myriad problem behaviors.

Intergenerational transmission of psychopathology across three generations: the role of social support

Psychopathology runs in families and affects functioning of individuals and their family members. This study assessed the intergenerational transmission of psychopathology risk across three generations, and the extent to which social support factors may protect against this transmission from parents to their offspring. This study was embedded in Generation R, a multi-ethnic population-based cohort from fetal life onwards. Lifetime psychiatric disorders of grandparents were assessed with the Family Informant Schedule Criteria- updated for DSM-IV. Parental psychopathology was repeatedly measured by the Brief Symptom Inventory. Offspring psychopathology (ages 10 and 14) was assessed with the Brief Problem Monitor. Maternal and child social factors were assessed using questionnaire measures and a computerized peer nomination assessment. Our results show that the estimated additive interaction effect for the risk transmission of grandparental and pre- and postnatal parental psychopathology to offspring psychopathology was 23% (95% CI 19; 27). The joint effect of grandparental and parental psychopathology combined with maternal and child social support factors was 13% (95% CI 08; 17)], suggesting that social support factors diminished the intergenerational transmission of psychopathology from (grand)parents (G1 and G2) to offspring (G3). Transmission of psychopathology risk may have long-lasting developmental effects across generations. Social support factors reduced the vulnerability to the effects of psychopathology risk, underscoring the importance of the identification of buffering factors associated with good mental health in adolescents who are at high familial risk.

Paternal and Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Sensitivity: Links with Trajectories of Socioemotional Problems in Toddlerhood

Parental depressive symptoms and sensitivity have well-documented consequences for children; however, studies considering both parents are still scarce. This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the respective roles of paternal and maternal depressive symptoms and sensitivity in predicting the development of child socioemotional problems during toddlerhood. We also investigated the buffering role of each parent's sensitivity in the associations between the other parent's depressive symptoms and toddlers' socioemotional problems. The sample consisted of 140 Canadian families who were visited in their homes when children were around 13 (T1), 19 (T2), and 27 (T3) months of age. At T1, both parents' sensitivity was assessed from observations of parent-child interactions at home and each parent reported on his or her own depressive symptoms. At T1, T2, and T3, maternal and paternal perceptions of their toddler's socioemotional problems were assessed and aggregated. Growth curve analyses revealed that paternal and maternal depressive symptoms as well as paternal sensitivity were unique and persistent predictors of child socioemotional problems and that sensitive fathering acted as a buffer in the context of maternal depressive symptoms. This study highlights the importance of considering both parents when studying risk and protective factors for young children's socioemotional problems.

Exploring the Impact of Maternal and Paternal Acceptance on Adolescent Girls' Emotion Regulation

Maternal acceptance is associated with youth emotion regulation (a correlate of depression among adolescent girls); however, less is known about the impact of fathers. In this prospective study, we examined effects of maternal and paternal acceptance on youth sadness inhibition (a facet of emotion dysregulation) among adolescent girls (n = 82; Mage = 13.28; 43% from minoritized racial/ethnic groups) over 1 year. Youth varied on depression risk, which was assessed via clinical diagnostic interviews. Bivariate results showed that maternal acceptance was associated with lower youth sadness inhibition at baseline and 1-year follow-up, while paternal acceptance was only associated with lower youth sadness inhibition at 1-year follow-up. Step-wise regressions showed that paternal acceptance was inversely associated with youth sadness inhibition over time, above and beyond effects of youth age, baseline sadness inhibition, depression risk, and maternal acceptance. Findings highlight the importance of examining both mothers' and fathers' impact on adolescent girls' development of emotion regulation.

Family Functioning, Maternal Depression, and Adolescent Cognitive Flexibility and Its Associations with Adolescent Depression: A Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND

This study explores family functioning and its associations with adolescent major depressive disorder (MDD), comparing its dynamics with healthy counterparts. Family functioning (cohesion, flexibility, communication, and satisfaction), maternal depressive symptoms, postpartum depression history, parental divorce, parental alcohol abuse, and the adolescents' cognitive flexibility, are examined. The research incorporates the perspectives of both adolescents and mothers.

METHODS

The sample includes 63 mother-teenager dyads in the clinical group and 43 in the control group. Instruments encompass the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales (FACES IV), Children's Depression Inventory (CDI-2), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), The Brixton Spatial Anticipation Test, and structured interviews.

RESULTS

Families of adolescents with MDD exhibit lower flexibility, cohesion, communication, and overall satisfaction. Depressed adolescents display reduced cognitive flexibility. Discrepancies were observed between adolescents' and mothers' perspectives as associated with adolescents' MDD. Teenagers emphasized the severity of maternal depressive symptoms, while mothers highlighted the importance of family cohesion and flexibility.

CONCLUSIONS

This study emphasizes a holistic strategy in addressing adolescent depression, including family-based assessment and therapy. Screening for maternal depressive symptoms is identified as valuable. Cognitive flexibility also needs to be addressed during therapy for depression in adolescence.

Protective factors enhancing resilience in children of parents with a mental illness: a systematic review

Objectives

A systematic review was conducted to (1) investigate protective factors enhancing resilience in children of parents with a mental illness (COPMI), and (2) examine theoretical and methodological issues in the existing literature.

Method

Following guidelines for systematic reviews, searches were performed using Web of Science, Pubmed and Embase. After screening 5,073 articles 37 fulfilled inclusion criteria and were extracted for review. Results of the present review indicate that there are several ways to help build resilience in COPMI. More specifically, five protective factors emerged from the reviewed literature: Information, Support, Family functioning and Connectedness, Child coping, and Parenting.

Discussion

Research on protective factors in children confronted with parental mental illness is still scarce and for some factors no clear conclusions can be drawn based on the available evidence. To further our understanding of the building blocks and underlying mechanisms of resilience in COPMI, additional rigorously designed studies are needed.

Father contribution to human resilience

Fathers have been an important source of child endurance and prosperity since the dawn of civilization, promoting adaptation to social rules, defining cultural meaning systems, teaching daily living skills, and providing the material background against which children developed; still, the recent reformulation in the role of the father requires theory-building. Paternal caregiving is rare in mammals, occurring in 3-5% of species, expresses in multiple formats, and involves flexible neurobiological accommodations to ecological conditions and active caregiving. Here, we discuss father contribution to resilience across development. Our model proposes three tenets of resilience - plasticity, sociality, and meaning - and discussion focuses on father-specific contributions to each tenet at different developmental stages; newborn, infant, preschooler, child, and adolescent. Father's style of high arousal, energetic physicality, guided participation in daily skills, joint adventure, and conflict resolution promotes children's flexible approach and social competence within intimate bonds and social groups. By expanding children's interests, sharpening cognitions, tuning affect regulation, encouraging exploration, and accompanying the search for identity, fathers support the sense of meaning, enhancing the human-specific dimension of resilience. We end by highlighting pitfalls to paternal contribution, including absence, abuse, rigidity, expectations, and gender typing, and the need to formulate novel theories to accommodate the "involved dad."

Maternal postnatal depressive symptoms and offspring emotional and behavioral development at age 7 years in a U.K. birth cohort: The role of paternal involvement

There is considerable variability in developmental outcomes of children whose mothers experience depression. Few longitudinal studies have examined contributions of paternal involvement in the association between maternal postnatal depression (PND) and offspring development. We examined pathways from maternal PND at 8 weeks (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale; total score) to offspring emotional and behavioral development at 7 years (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire; total score) through behavioral, affective, and cognitive dimensions of paternal involvement in a U.K.-based birth cohort (Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children; n = 3,434). Analyses were adjusted for baseline confounders and paternal PND (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale; total score) as an intermediate confounder. Maternal PND was strongly associated with offspring development, but this association was not mediated by the combination of all indirect pathways through various dimensions of paternal involvement. Only father-child conflict emerged as a risk factor for adverse offspring development and as a mediator in the association between maternal PND and offspring development (albeit the effect size was small). If found causal, interventions that reduce father-child conflict may reduce the risk of adverse development in offspring of mothers with PND. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The association of different presentations of maternal depression with children's socio-emotional development: A systematic review

Maternal depression from the perinatal period onwards is a global health priority associated with an increased likelihood of suboptimal socio-developmental outcomes in offspring. An important aspect of this association is the extent to which sustained maternal depression impacts on these outcomes. The current review synthesised the evidence on maternal depression from the perinatal period onwards and offspring internalising, externalising, and social competence outcomes. We also identified sources of methodological bias. A systematic review following PRISMA guidelines was conducted. Longitudinal studies targeting biological mothers with depressive symptomology, detailing onset, using repeated validated measures, and assessing children's outcomes between three and 12 years were included. Twenty-four studies met inclusion criteria. Findings supported the validity of different presentations of maternal depression, including consistent identification of a group of chronically depressed mothers across countries. Mothers within this group reported poorer internalising, externalising, and social competence outcomes for their offspring, with the highest levels of child problems associated with greater maternal chronicity and symptom severity. Results differed by measurement type with mothers rating poorer outcomes in comparison to teachers reports. For timing of depression, evidence was inconsistent for independent effects of antenatal or postnatal depression on child outcomes. There was substantial variability in study quality assessment. Assessing different presentations of maternal depression is essential for capturing the longitudinal associations between maternal depression and offspring outcomes to inform targets of early intervention. Chronicity, severity, and concurrent maternal depression have important implications for children's development and should be targeted in future programme planning. Further research in low- and middle-income countries is warranted.

Resilience, and positive parenting in parents of children with syndromic autism and intellectual disability. Evidence from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on family's quality of life and parent-child relationships

Family quality of life (FQoL) outcomes collected during the first year of COVID-19 has been combined with 2018 data to estimate the outbreak's impact on parental outcomes on a sample of 230 families with syndromic autistic children and those with intellectual disabilities (IDs). Despite challenges imposed by the COVID-19 outbreak, our study found that FQoL outcomes reported by participating parents during the first year of COVID-19 appears to be similar to ratings from a prepandemic study of families with the same conditions. Parents of children in our sample generally displayed a stable functioning trajectory as measured by the validated FQoL instrument. Across syndromic autistic groups considered, families reported that their relationships with their children were positive. Our findings provide evidence of families' resilience which might explain the presence of positive parent-child interactions during COVID-19. Exploring mechanisms which would explain how families with autistic and ID children confront, manage disruptive experiences, and buffer COVID-19 induced stress is a fruitful direction for future research.

Mental health resilience in offspring of depressed parents: a systematic literature review protocol

BACKGROUND

Parental depression is associated with a range of mental health conditions and other difficulties in the offspring. Nevertheless, some offspring exposed to parental depression do not develop mental health problems, indicating the presence of protective factors that may buffer parental depression-related risk effects. However, evidence of protective factors that might explain good sustained mental health in offspring of depressed parents is limited and systematic synthesis of these factors is still needed. Therefore, as far as we are aware, this will be the first systematic review that will identify parent, family, child, social, and lifestyle factors associated with mental health resilience in offspring of depressed parents, examine evidence for sex-, developmental stage-, and outcome-specific factors and define mental health resilience in the parental depression context.

METHODS

This protocol has been developed according to the PRISMA-P guidelines. Electronic searches will be performed for articles published up to 2022 in PsycINFO, Embase, MEDLINE, Web of Science Core Collection, and Cochrane Library. Two reviewers will independently screen titles/abstracts and full-texts against eligibility criteria, extract the data, and assess the overall quality of evidence. Both observational and RCT studies will be eligible for inclusion if they report offspring mental health resilience/outcome and depressive symptoms or depressive disorder in at least one of the parents/caregivers. Risk of bias will be assessed using The Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal checklists and The Revised Cochrane risk of bias tool for randomised trials (RoB 2). It is expected that studies will be heterogeneous; therefore, meta-analysis will not be attempted. Studies will be systematically retrieved and collated using numerical, graphical, tabular, and narrative summaries and grouped by their design, scope, or overall quality. Further sub-group analyses will be performed to examine sex-, developmental stage-, and outcome-specific protective factors.

DISCUSSION

The proposed systematic review will be the first to summarise and critically assess quality and strength of evidence of protective factors associated with mental health resilience in offspring of depressed parents. Directions and effect sizes of the protective factors will be discussed as well as differences between the studies, their limitations, and research gaps and future directions. Strengths and limitations of the proposed systematic review will be also discussed. The proposed systematic review findings are expected to help better understand mental health resilience and identify targets for evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies for those in need.

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION

A previous version of this systematic review protocol has been registered in the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) database ( www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO , CRD42021229955).

Characteristics of maternal depression and children's functioning: A meta-analytic review

Maternal depression is associated with cognitive, emotional, and behavioral problems in offspring, but the substantial heterogeneity of depression precludes a full understanding of these associations. Variation in course of depression, characterized by severity or chronicity, may be related differentially to children's development. The current meta-analytic review examined the relations of these characteristics of maternal depression to children's developmental outcomes. Twenty-nine studies were identified and reviewed; the majority (93%) of studies reported a negative association between some aspect of maternal depression and children's adjustment. Separate meta-analyses revealed significant effect sizes for severity (Fisher's z = -.243) and chronicity (adjusted Fisher's z = -.337) of maternal depression and children's cognitive or behavioral functioning. Findings are synthesized across features of maternal depression; methodological limitations within the empirical literature are discussed; and recommendations for future research are suggested. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Supportive Neighborhoods, Family Resilience and Flourishing in Childhood and Adolescence

Flourishing is linked with health and well-being in childhood and adulthood. This study applied a promotive factors model to examine how neighborhood assets might benefit child and adolescent flourishing by promoting family resilience. Using data from the combined 2018 and 2019 National Survey of Children’s Health, structural equation models tested direct and indirect relationships between neighborhood physical environment, neighborhood social cohesion, family resilience, and flourishing among 18,396 children and 24,817 adolescents. After controlling for multiple covariates that may influence flourishing, the models supported that higher levels of neighborhood social cohesion were directly associated with higher levels of flourishing adolescents, and indirectly by positive associations with family resilience for both children and adolescents. No indirect effects between neighborhood physical environments and flourishing were supported by the data for either children or adolescents. However, neighborhood physical environments were positively associated with adolescent flourishing. Understanding social environmental factors that strengthen and enhance child and adolescent flourishing are critical toward designing prevention, intervention, and policy efforts that can build on the existing strengths of families and their communities.

Longitudinal Associations Among Low-Income Mothers' and Fathers' Parenting and Relationships with Children and Adolescent Depression

Few studies have examined the associations among quality of parent-child relationships, parenting, and adolescent depression in samples of low-income mothers and fathers with large numbers of nonresidential fathers. This study used the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing data (N = 3,384) to examine the longitudinal associations among parent-child closeness, harsh parenting, and neglect when children were nine years old and adolescent depression at age 15. The findings indicated that children who perceived having close relationships with mothers and fathers at age nine reported significantly less depression at age 15, regardless of residential status. Moderation analyses showed a stronger negative relationship between daughters' closeness with mothers and depression than sons' closeness with mothers and depression. Daughters and sons who were close to fathers reported less depression. There were no significant associations among harsh discipline or neglect and depression. The findings support the use of interventions that promote healthy attachments and close parent-child relationships between low-income parents and children.

The Neural Basis of Human Fatherhood: A Unique Biocultural Perspective on Plasticity of Brain and Behavior

With the growing involvement of fathers in childrearing and the application of neuroscientific tools to research on parenting, there is a need to understand how a father's brain and neurohormonal systems accommodate the transition to parenthood and how such neurobiological changes impact children's mental health, sociality, and family functioning. In this paper, we present a theoretical model on the human father's brain and the neural adaptations that take place when fathers assume an involved role. The neurobiology of fatherhood shows great variability across individuals, societies, and cultures and is shaped to a great extent by bottom-up caregiving experiences and the amount of childrearing responsibilities. Mechanisms of mother-father coparental brain coordination and hormonal correlates of paternal behavior are detailed. Adaptations in the father's brain during pregnancy and across the postpartum year carry long-term implications for children's emotion regulation, stress management, and symptom formation. We propose a new conceptual model of HEALthy Father Brain that describes how a father's brain serves as a source of resilience in the context of family adversity and its capacity to "heal", protect, and foster social brain maturation and functionality in family members via paternal sensitivity, attunement, and support, which, in turn, promote child development and healthy family functioning. Father's brain provides a unique model on neural plasticity as sustained by committed acts of caregiving, thereby affording a novel perspective on the brain basis of human affiliation.

Conceptualizing Emotion Regulation and Coregulation as Family-Level Phenomena

The ability to regulate one’s emotions is foundational for healthy development and functioning in a multitude of domains, whereas difficulties in emotional regulation are recognized as a risk factor for a range of adverse outcomes in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Caregivers play a key role in cultivating the development of emotion regulation through coregulation, or the processes by which they provide external support or scaffolding as children navigate their emotional experiences. The vast majority of research to date has examined coregulation in the context of caregiver–child dyads. In this paper, we consider emotion regulation and coregulation as family-level processes that unfold within and across multiple family subsystems and explore how triadic and whole family interactions may contribute to the development of children’s emotion regulation skills. Furthermore, we will examine the implications of a family-centered perspective on emotion regulation for prevention of and intervention for childhood emotional and behavioral disorders. Because emotion regulation skills undergo such dramatic maturation during children’s first several years of life, much of our focus will be on coregulation within and across the family system during early childhood; however, as many prevention and intervention approaches are geared toward school-aged children and adolescents, we will also devote some attention to later developmental periods.

Pathways from maternal depressive symptoms to children's academic performance in adolescence: A 13-year prospective-longitudinal study

The pathways through which exposure to maternal depressive symptoms in early childhood are linked to academic performance during adolescence are poorly understood. This study tested pathways from maternal depressive symptoms (age 2–5) to adolescent academic performance (age 15) through cumulative parenting risk (age 7) and subsequent child functioning (age 10), using multi‐informant data from a prospective longitudinal community study spanning 13 years (N = 389, 47% male, 68% White). Structural equation models testing indirect effects revealed small associations between maternal depressive symptoms and increased cumulative parenting risk and poorer child functioning, and, via these pathways, with poorer academic performance. Thus, childhood exposure to maternal depressive symptoms may be associated with pathways of risk that could limit children's educational opportunities.

Expanding the international conversation with fathers' mental health: toward an era of inclusion in perinatal research and practice

Paternal mental health is beginning to be recognized as an essential part of perinatal health. Historically, fathers were not recognized as being at risk for perinatal mental illnesses or relevant to maternal and infant health outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of paternal perinatal mental health, leading tools to assess paternal depression and anxiety, the impact of paternal mental health on mother and child health, and future directions for the field. An international team of paternal perinatal mental health experts summarized the key findings of the field. Fathers have an elevated risk of depression and anxiety disorders during the perinatal period that is associated with maternal depression and can impact their ability to support mothers. Paternal mental health is uniquely associated with child mental health and developmental outcomes starting from infancy and continuing through the child lifespan. Tailored screening approaches for paternal mental health are essential to support fathers early in the perinatal period, which would offset health risks for the family. Recommendations on paternal mental health are provided on four key areas to support father perinatal mental health: (1) intervention research, (2) clinical training, (3) national policy, and (4) the inclusion of fathers in the focus of the International Marcé Society for Perinatal Mental Health.

Maternal depression is associated with decreased functional connectivity within semantics and phonology networks in preschool children

INTRODUCTION

Maternal depression is characterized by a lack of emotional responsiveness and engagement with their child, which may lead to the child's decreased cognitive, and language outcomes all related to the child's future reading outcomes. The relations between maternal depression and functional connectivity in neural circuits supporting language in the child was explored.

METHODS

Eleven 4-year-old girls completed language abilities assessment and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Their mothers completed the Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI) to examine maternal depression when the child was 12 months old and at the age of 4. Functional connections within the child's resting-state phonology, semantics, language networks were correlated with maternal BDI scores at the age of 4 years.

RESULTS

Higher maternal depression was associated with the child's decreased within the semantic and phonological networks connectivity during rest. Higher maternal depression at 4 years moderated the relationship between early depression scores and functional connectivity within the phonological network.

CONCLUSIONS

Maternal depression in the first year of life is related to functional connections of phonological processing and enhanced by current maternal depression levels. We conclude that after a mother gives birth, resources should be provided to minimize depressive symptoms and interventions should be applied to support their child's language development for future reading acquisition.

Major depression, temperament, and social support as psychosocial mechanisms of the intergenerational transmission of parenting styles

In this three-generation longitudinal study of familial depression, we investigated the continuity of parenting styles, and major depressive disorder (MDD), temperament, and social support during childrearing as potential mechanisms. Each generation independently completed the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), measuring individuals' experiences of care and overprotection received from parents during childhood. MDD was assessed prospectively, up to 38 years, using the semi-structured Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (SADS). Social support and temperament were assessed using the Social Adjustment Scale - Self-Report (SAS-SR) and Dimensions of Temperament Scales - Revised, respectively. We first assessed transmission of parenting styles in the generation 1 to generation 2 cycle (G1→G2), including 133 G1 and their 229 G2 children (367 pairs), and found continuity of both care and overprotection. G1 MDD accounted for the association between G1→G2 experiences of care, and G1 social support and temperament moderated the transmission of overprotection. The findings were largely similar when examining these psychosocial mechanisms in 111 G2 and their spouses (G2+S) and their 136 children (G3) (a total of 223 pairs). Finally, in a subsample of families with three successive generations (G1→G2→G3), G2 experiences of overprotection accounted for the association between G1→G3 experiences of overprotection. The results of this study highlight the roles of MDD, temperament, and social support in the intergenerational continuity of parenting, which should be considered in interventions to "break the cycle" of poor parenting practices across generations.

The buffering role of paternal parenting stress in the relationship between maternal parenting stress and children's problematic behaviour

The present study aimed at exploring the relationship between parenting stress and children's problematic behaviour in the families of 99 children aged 8–11 years. Parenting stress was assessed by parents, using the Parenting Stress Index, and children's problematic behaviour was assessed by teachers, using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. A moderation regression analysis showed a conditioning effect of paternal parenting stress in the relationship between maternal parenting stress and children's problematic behaviour. In the presence of high levels of paternal parenting stress, the relationship between maternal parenting stress and children's problematic behaviour was significant and strong (p = .01). When paternal parenting stress levels were low, the relationship between maternal parenting stress and children's problematic behaviour was not significant (p = .49). The results underlined that paternal parenting stress may buffer the relationship between maternal parenting stress and children's problematic behaviour. Clinical implications are discussed.

Parental depressive symptoms, parent-child dyadic behavioral variability, and child dysregulation

Parental depressive symptoms are associated with greater variability and inconsistency in parenting behavior as well as children's emotional and behavioral dysregulation. The present study explored whether such relations extended to dyadic processes, examining whether maternal and paternal depressive symptoms at child age 3½ interacted with concurrent higher dyadic behavioral variability (DBV) in mother-child free play to heighten children's emotional and behavioral dysregulation at age 4 (N = 100). Child dysregulation was measured as mother-reported emotional lability-negativity and externalizing problems, and DBV was measured as the number of transitions among dyadic behavioral states using state space grids. Parent behaviors included parent directives, positive reinforcement, and disengagement, and child behaviors included child compliance, persistence, and noncompliance, among others. Analyses also accounted for the degree of positive (compared to negative) behavioral content. Moderation analyses showed that DBV predicted greater child dysregulation only when maternal or paternal depressive symptoms were higher. Further, DBV was detrimental only when dyadic positive interaction content was low. Findings suggest DBV combined with low positive content in parent-child interactions is a particular risk factor for children's regulatory development. Fostering positive, predictable interaction patterns may be an important target for family interventions with a depressed parent. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

[Improvement of Mental Health and Bonding in Women with Mental Disorders in the Postpartum Period - Evaluation of an Interaction-Centered Treatment of a Mother-Baby Day Clinic]

OBJECTIVE

Women with postpartum mental disorders often have a delayed bonding to their child with negative consequences for the child's development. In several countries it has been demonstrated that a specific mother-child treatment has positive effects on maternal psychopathology and mother-child bonding. Data for German-speaking countries are rare, partly due to the lack of adequately financed mother-baby units. The objectives of this study were to characterize the patients and to evaluate the treatment in a psychosomatic-psychotherapeutic mother-child day clinic.

METHODS

A total of 270 patients were examined at admission and discharge from the mother-child day clinic. The evaluation included main and secondary diagnoses according to ICD-10, duration of treatment, medication, information on the child, and psychometric questionnaires on maternal psychopathology, mother-child bonding, and parental sense of competence.

RESULTS

Of the women examined, 75% had more than one, on average 2.3 mental diagnoses. The most frequent main diagnoses were affective disorders (38.5%), neurotic, stress and somatoform disorders (30.7%) and personality and behavioral disorders (20.4%). About 56% reported impaired mother-child bonding. The average duration of therapy was 32 treatment days. Between admission and discharge, a highly significant improvement in symptoms was observed with a high effect size [F=288.557 (df=1), p<0.001, Eta²=0.549]. At discharge, 86.6% of patients showed no signs of mother-child bonding disorder.

DISCUSSION

The results indicate high potential effects of an interaction-centered treatment on maternal mental health and mother-child bonding.

CONCLUSIONS

The joint treatment of mother and child should be a fixed and financed component of the mental health system in order to prevent chronification and negative developmental consequences for the child.

Social Behavior as a Transdiagnostic Marker of Resilience

The recent shift from psychopathology to resilience and from diagnosis to functioning requires the construction of transdiagnostic markers of adaptation. This review describes a model of resilience that is based on the neurobiology of affiliation and the initial condition of mammals that mature in the context of the mother's body and social behavior. The model proposes three tenets of resilience-plasticity, sociality, and meaning-and argues that coordinated social behavior stands at the core sustaining resilience. Two lines in the maturation of coordinated social behavior are charted, across animal evolution and throughout human development, culminating in the mature human reciprocity of empathy, mutuality, and perspective-taking. Cumulative evidence across ages and clinical conditions and based on our behavioral coding system demonstrates that social reciprocity, defined by plasticity at the individual, dyadic, and group levels, denotes resilience, whereas the two poles of disengagement/avoidance and intrusion/rigidity characterize specific psychopathologies, each with a distinct behavioral signature. Attention to developmentally sensitive markers and to the dimension of meaning in human sociality may open new, behavior-based pathways to resilience.

Early maternal and paternal caregiving moderates the links between preschoolers' reactivity and regulation and maturation of the HPA-immune axis

While early caregiving and child's temperamental dispositions work in concert to shape social-emotional outcomes, their unique and joint contribution to the maturation of the child's stress and immune systems remain unclear. We followed children longitudinally from infancy to preschool to address the buffering effect of early parenting on the link between temperamental dysregulation and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-immune axis in preschool-aged children. Participants included 47 typically developing children and their 94 parents in both mother-father and two-father families followed across the first 4-years of family formation. In infancy, we observed parent-infant synchrony and measured parental oxytocin; in preschool, we observed temperamental reactivity and self-regulation and assessed children's cortisol and secretory Immunoglobulin A (s-IgA), biomarkers of the stress and immune systems. Greater self-regulation and lower negative emotionality were associated with lower baseline s-IgA and cortisol, respectively. However, these links were defined by interactive effects so that preschoolers with low self-regulation displayed higher s-IgA levels only in cases of low parent-infant synchrony and negative emotionality linked with greater baseline cortisol levels only when parental oxytocin levels were low. Results emphasize the long-term stress-buffering role of the neurobiology of parental care, demonstrate comparable developmental paths for mothers and fathers, and delineate the complex developmental cascades to the maturation of children's stress-management systems.

Risk and Resilience Factors During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Snapshot of the Experiences of Canadian Workers Early on in the Crisis

Research highlights several risk and resilience factors at multiple ecological levels that influence individuals’ mental health and wellbeing in their everyday lives and, more specifically, in disaster or outbreak situations. However, there is limited research on the role of these factors in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis. The present study examined if and how potential risk factors (i.e., reduction in income, job insecurity, feelings of vulnerability to contracting the virus, lack of confidence in avoiding COVID-19, compliance with preventative policies) and resilience factors (i.e., trait resilience, family functioning, social support, social participation, and trust in healthcare institutions) are associated with mental health and well-being outcomes, and whether these resilience factors buffer (i.e., moderate) the associations between risk factors and said outcomes. One to two weeks after the government recommended preventative measures, 1,122 Canadian workers completed an online questionnaire, including multiple wellbeing outcome scales in addition to measures of potential risk and resilience factors. Structural equation models were tested, highlighting that overall, the considered risk factors were associated with poorer wellbeing outcomes, except social distancing which was associated with lower levels of stress. Each of the potential resilience factors was found to have a main effect on one or more of the wellbeing outcomes. Moderation analysis indicated that in general these resilience factors did not, however, buffer the risk factors. The findings confirm that the COVID-19 crisis encompasses several stressors related to the virus as well as to its impact on one’s social, occupational, and financial situation, which put people at risk for lower wellbeing as early as one to two weeks after the crisis began. While several resilience factors emerged as positively related to wellbeing, such factors may not be enough, or sufficiently activated at that time, to buffer the effects of the numerous life changes required by COVID-19. From an ecological perspective, while mental health professionals and public health decision-makers should offer/design services directly focused on mental health and wellbeing, it is important they go beyond celebrating individuals’ inner potential for resilience, and also support individuals in activating their environmental resources during a pandemic.

Offspring Personality Mediates the Association between Maternal Depression and Childhood Psychopathology

Offspring of mothers diagnosed with major depression are at increased risk for a wide range of psychological problems. Previous research has shown that individual differences in personality development can be informative for predicting risk and resilience to psychopathology, especially within at-risk populations. In the present study, we examined whether individual differences in offspring personality development during early to middle childhood could account for the association between maternal depression and offspring behavior problems later in childhood. Participants included 64 offspring of mothers diagnosed with major depression and 68 offspring of healthy comparison mothers. Personality was assessed via parent report at ages 3, 4, 5, and 9. Offspring internalizing and externalizing symptoms were assessed at age 9 via parent and teacher report. Results of latent growth curve models indicated that offspring Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness mediated the link between early maternal depression and later childhood behavior problems, though results varied across maternal and teacher reports. Findings suggest that individual differences in youth personality and personality development are important predictors of emerging psychopathology among offspring of mothers diagnosed with depression.

What is resilience: an affiliative neuroscience approach

Resilience - a key topic in clinical science and practice - still lacks a clear conceptualization that integrates its evolutionary and human-specific features, refrains from exclusive focus on fear physiology, incorporates a developmental approach, and, most importantly, is not based on the negation (i.e., absence of symptoms following trauma). Building on the initial condition of mammals, whose brain matures in the context of the mother's body and caregiving behavior, we argue that systems and processes that participate in tuning the brain to the social ecology and adapting to its hardships mark the construct of resilience. These include the oxytocin system, the affiliative brain, and biobehavioral synchrony, all characterized by great flexibility across phylogenesis and ontogenesis. Three core features of resilience are outlined: plasticity, sociality and meaning. Mechanisms of sociality by which coordinated action supports diversity, endurance and adaptation are described across animal evolution. Humans' biobehavioral synchrony matures from maternal attuned behavior in the postpartum to adult-adult relationships of empathy, perspective-taking and intimacy, and extends from the mother-child relationship to other affiliative bonds throughout life, charting a fundamental trajectory in the development of resilience. Findings from three high-risk cohorts, each tapping a distinct disruption to maternal-infant bonding (prematurity, maternal depression, and early life stress/trauma), and followed from birth to adolescence/young adulthood, demonstrate how components of the neurobiology of affiliation confer resilience and uniquely shape the social brain.

The Long-Term Impact of Maternal Anxiety and Depression Postpartum and in Early Childhood on Child and Paternal Mental Health at 11-12 Years Follow-Up

BACKGROUND

Postpartum maternal anxiety and depression can affect child development and family functioning. However, the long-term impact of postpartum maternal anxiety and depression on child and paternal mental health is understudied. The present large-scale prospective cohort study is one of the first to investigate whether maternal anxiety and depressive symptoms postpartum and at child age 5-6 years separately and synergistically increase paternal anxiety and depressive symptoms and child emotional problems in early adolescence at age 11-12 years. Secondly, we investigated whether concurrent paternal anxiety and depressive symptoms at child age 11-12 years moderated the association between maternal anxiety and depressive symptoms in the postpartum period and at child age 5-6 years with child emotional problems at age 11-12 years.

METHODS

This study is part of the Amsterdam Born Children and Development (ABCD) cohort study, the Netherlands (N = 2.298). Maternal postpartum anxiety and depressive symptoms were assessed using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) at 13 weeks postpartum. Maternal anxiety and depressive symptoms at child age 5-6 years and parental anxiety and depressive symptoms at 11-12 years were assessed using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21). Child emotional problems were reported by the child and a teacher using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Multivariable linear regression was conducted, adjusted for demographic, perinatal/obstetric confounders, and affective symptoms of the other family members at 11-12 years.

RESULTS

Neither maternal anxiety nor depressive symptoms were related to paternal depressive symptoms at child age 11-12 years, while maternal postpartum depressive symptoms, depressive symptoms at 5-6 years and maternal anxiety at 5-6 years were positively related to paternal anxiety at 11-12 years. However, effect sizes were small. Only maternal postpartum depression was positively but weakly associated with more child emotional problems at 11-12 years. Although paternal concurrent affective symptoms were positively related to more child emotional problems in early adolescence, they did not moderate the association between maternal symptoms and child emotional problems.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results indicate that fathers and children seem to be affected only to a small extent by maternal postpartum anxiety or depression.

It takes two! Exploring sex differences in parenting neurobiology and behaviour

Parents lay the foundation for their children's socio-emotional experiences by sensitively responding to their needs. The hormonal and neurobiological changes that occur during the transition to parenthood importantly contribute to the parents' caregiving behaviour toward their children. Much research has emphasised the relationship between the mother, who is most often the primary caregiver, and her infant, with less focus on the role of fathers in child development. However, recent accounts have suggested that fathers also play an important role in promoting the health, development and psychosocial wellbeing of their children. Evidence from the behavioural literature has indicated that there are significant differences between typical mother-infant versus father-infant interactions. The current review aims to outline differences between maternal and paternal caregiving by discussing the differences in their biological mechanisms. First, we focus on the different hormones that are correlated with sensitive parenting behaviours in mothers and fathers. Next, we discuss the differences between neural bases of motherhood and fatherhood. Lastly, we discuss ways in which parental hormones, parental brain and parental exposure to infant cues interact to shape parental caregiving behaviour. In summary, this review highlights the distinct but complementary nature of maternal and paternal caregiving.

Transactional associations of maternal depressive symptoms with child externalizing behaviors are small after age 3

A large and growing body of research suggests that maternal depressive symptoms and child externalizing behaviors are strongly associated. Theoretical arguments supported by these findings led to the question of whether maternal depressive symptoms are transactionally associated with child externalizing behaviors. Using 5-year nationally representative longitudinal data from Turkey (N = 1,052), we estimated a transactional bivariate autoregressive latent trajectory model addressing this question. This model disaggregated the association of the two processes into two components: (a) the association of the interindividual differences in the trajectories; and (b) the intradyad association of the changes in maternal depressive symptoms with the changes in child externalizing behaviors. Although maternal depressive symptoms were robustly associated with child externalizing behaviors at age 3, the transactional associations of the two processes were small prior to age 5 and absent at ages 5 to 7. Furthermore, maternal harsh parenting did not have a mediating role in the limited transactional association of maternal depressive symptoms with child externalizing behaviors.