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- All Subjects: Mother and infant
- Creators: Luecken, Linda J.
Description
Postpartum depression (PPD) is a significant public health concern affecting up to half a million U.S. women annually. Mexican-American women experience substantially higher rates of PPD, and represent an underserved population with significant health disparities that put these women and their infants at greater risk for substantial psychological and developmental difficulties. The current study utilized data on perceived stress, depression, maternal parenting behavior, and infant social-emotional and cognitive development from 214 Mexican-American mother-infant dyads. The first analysis approach utilized a latent intercept (LI) model to examine how overall mean levels and within-person deviations of perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and maternal parenting behavior are related across the postpartum period. Results indicated large, positive between- and within-person correlations between perceived stress and depression. Neither perceived stress nor depressive symptoms were found to have significant between- or within-person associations with the parenting variables. The second analysis approach utilized an autoregressive cross-lagged model with tests of mediation to identify underlying mechanisms among perceived stress, postpartum depressive symptoms, and maternal parenting behavior in the prediction of infant social-emotional and cognitive development. Results indicated that increased depressive symptoms at 12- and 18-weeks were associated with subsequent reports of increased perceived stress at 18- and 24-weeks, respectively. Perceived stress at 12-weeks was found to be negatively associated with subsequent non-hostility at 18-weeks, and both sensitivity and non-hostility were found to be associated with infant cognitive development and social-emotional competencies at 12 months of age (52-weeks), but not with social-emotional problems. The results of the mediation analyses showed that non-hostility at 18- and 24-weeks significantly mediated the association between perceived stress at 12-weeks and infant cognitive development and social-emotional competencies at 52-weeks. The findings extend research that sensitive parenting in early childhood is as important to the development of cognitive ability, social behavior, and emotion regulation in ethnic minority cultures as it is in majority culture families; that maternal perceptions of stress may spillover into parenting behavior, resulting in increased hostility and negatively influencing infant cognitive and social-emotional development; and that symptoms of depressed mood may influence the experience of stress.
ContributorsCiciolla, Lucia (Author) / Crnic, Keith A (Thesis advisor) / West, Stephen G. (Thesis advisor) / Luecken, Linda J. (Committee member) / Presson, Clark C. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Clinically meaningful emotional and behavioral problems are thought to be present beginning in infancy, and may be reliably assessed in children as young as 12 months old. However, few studies have investigated early correlates of emotional and behavioral problems assessed in infancy. The current study investigates the direct and interactive contributions of early infant and caregiver characteristics thought to play an important role in the ontogeny of behavior problems. Specifically, the study examines: (1) the links between temperamental reactivity across the first year of life and behavior problems at 18 months, (2) whether children high in temperamental reactivity are differentially susceptible to variations in maternal sensitivity, (3) the extent to which child temperamental risk or susceptibility may further be explained by mothers’ experiences of stressful life events (SLEs) during and before pregnancy. Data were collected from 322 Mexican American families during prenatal, 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-week home interviews, as well as during 12- and 18-month lab interviews. Mother reports of SLEs were obtained between 23-40 weeks gestation; temperamental negativity and surgency at 6 weeks and 12 months; and internalizing and externalizing behaviors at 18 months. Maternal sensitivity during structured mother-infant interaction tasks at the 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-week visits was assessed by objective observer ratings. Study findings indicated that maternal SLEs before birth were associated with more infant negativity across the first year of life, and that negativity in turn was associated with more internalizing problems at 18 months. Ecological stressors thought to be associated with sociodemographic risk factors such as low-income and ethnic minority status may begin to exert cascades of influence on children’s developmental outcomes even before birth.
ContributorsLin, Betty (Author) / Crnic, Keith A (Thesis advisor) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn S (Committee member) / Luecken, Linda J. (Committee member) / Grimm, Kevin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Socioeconomic status (SES) is linked with poorer health outcomes across the range of SES. The Reserve Capacity Model (RCM) proposes that low SES fuels repeated and/or chronic exposure to elevated levels of stress, producing deleterious emotional, psychological, social, and physiological changes that result in development of disease over time. The RCM further asserts that a relative lack of social and psychological resources, including efficacy and social support, among low SES individuals accounts for their greater vulnerability to the effects of stress. Although the links between stress, reserve capacity, and health outcomes are framed in the RCM as an ongoing process that produces disease, the majority of investigations testing the model have not examined its utility in explaining 1) coping with daily stressors or 2) symptom flares among individuals managing a chronic illness. This study investigated the effects of SES, reflected in income level, on the: 1) levels of daily financial events and financial worry; 2) relations between daily financial worry and symptoms of pain and fatigue; and 3) extent to which daily coping efficacy and social support mediated the daily financial worry-symptom relation across 21 daily diary reports collected from 220 individuals with fibromyalgia (FM). Simple correlations showed that income was inversely related to frequency of financial events and level of financial worry across 21 days. Results from multilevel models indicated that daily increases in financial worry were unrelated to pain regardless of income level, but were related to increased fatigue among individuals with lower relative to higher income. Daily efficacy and support mediated the relations between financial worry and pain and fatigue, but the extent of mediation did not differ based on high versus low income level. Taken together, the findings suggest that individuals of low versus high income encounter more frequent financial stress and experience greater daily fatigue exacerbation related to that stress, in line with the RCM. Over time, the greater exposure and reactivity to financial strain may account for the inverse relation between income and disability among those with chronic pain.
ContributorsMoore, Shannon Victoria (Author) / Davis, Mary C. (Thesis advisor) / Luecken, Linda J. (Committee member) / Suk, Hye Won (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017