Abstract
Objectives: Maternal anxiety during pregnancy is a risk factor for child behavioral/emotional problems. Knowledge about explanatory factors mediating this link is scarce. Maternal anxiety during pregnancy may be an indicator of adverse postnatal environmental conditions, including maternal anxiety and poor parenting, possibly affecting child behavior. This study investigated whether maternal anxiety and mindful parenting in early childhood mediate the association between maternal anxiety during pregnancy and child behavioral/emotional problems.
Methods: This study was based on a sample of 118 mother-child dyads who participated in a cohort study that followed participants from pregnancy until 4 years after birth. At 21 weeks’ gestation and when the child was 4 years old, mothers completed questionnaires to assess state anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) and general anxiety (Symptom Checklist-90 anxiety subscale). At age 4 years, mothers reported mindful parenting (Interpersonal Mindfulness in Parenting Scale) and child behavioral/emotional problems (Child Behavior Checklist).
Results: Maternal state anxiety during pregnancy was positively associated with child internalizing problems and negatively with mindful parenting. Maternal general anxiety during pregnancy was related with more child internalizing and externalizing problems but not with mindful parenting. The association between maternal state anxiety during pregnancy and child internalizing problems was sequentially mediated via concurrent maternal general anxiety and mindful parenting.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that maternal anxiety during pregnancy continues into early childhood and, because of this, it subsequently affects child internalizing behavior via poor mindful parenting. Replication studies are needed before developing interventions for tackling maternal anxiety during pregnancy and promoting mindful parenting.
Methods: This study was based on a sample of 118 mother-child dyads who participated in a cohort study that followed participants from pregnancy until 4 years after birth. At 21 weeks’ gestation and when the child was 4 years old, mothers completed questionnaires to assess state anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) and general anxiety (Symptom Checklist-90 anxiety subscale). At age 4 years, mothers reported mindful parenting (Interpersonal Mindfulness in Parenting Scale) and child behavioral/emotional problems (Child Behavior Checklist).
Results: Maternal state anxiety during pregnancy was positively associated with child internalizing problems and negatively with mindful parenting. Maternal general anxiety during pregnancy was related with more child internalizing and externalizing problems but not with mindful parenting. The association between maternal state anxiety during pregnancy and child internalizing problems was sequentially mediated via concurrent maternal general anxiety and mindful parenting.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that maternal anxiety during pregnancy continues into early childhood and, because of this, it subsequently affects child internalizing behavior via poor mindful parenting. Replication studies are needed before developing interventions for tackling maternal anxiety during pregnancy and promoting mindful parenting.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 370-380 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Mindfulness |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Early online date | 26 Feb 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Feb 2021 |
Bibliographical note
© 2019, The Author(s).Funding
We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of participating families and students supporting the data collection. The PELS study is supported by the national funding agencies of the European Science Foundation participating in the EUROCORES EuroSTRESS Programme, i.e., the Brain and Cognition Program of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research for the Netherlands ((http://archives.esf.org/ coordinating-research/eurocores/ programmes/ eurostress/projects/ pels.html). BVdB is project leader of the PELS study conducted in collaboration with V. Glover (Imperial College London), S. Claes (KU Leuven), and A. Rodriguez (Uppsala University).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| European Science Foundation | |
| Imperial College London | |
| Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research for the Netherlands | |
| Uppsala Universitet | |
| ???publication-publication-funding-organisation-not-added??? | 279281 |
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