Maternal childhood trauma and perinatal distress are related to infants' focused attention from 6 to 18 months

Abstract

Maternal distress is repeatedly reported to have negative impacts on the cognitive development in children and is linked to neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g. attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder). However, studies examining the associations between maternal distress and the development of attention in infancy are few. This study investigated the longitudinal relationships between maternal distress (depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and exposure to childhood trauma) and the development of focused attention in infancy in 118 mother-infant dyads. We found that maternal exposure to non-interpersonal traumatic events in childhood was associated with the less focused attention of the infants to audio-visual stimuli at 6, 10, and 18 months. In addition, exposure to interpersonal traumatic events in childhood was identified as a moderator of the negative effect of maternal anxiety during the 2nd trimester on the development of focused attention in infants. We discuss the possible mechanisms accounting for these cross-generational effects. Our findings underscore the importance of maternal mental health to the development of focused attention in infancy and address the need for early screening of maternal mental health during pregnancy.

Figure 1

Illustration of the multivariate linear regression after adjusting for the sex of infant, mother’s education level, smoking history, and maternal age at birth. Non-interpersonal traumatic experiences in mother’s childhood and maternal anxiety in early pregnancy had a direct impact on infants’ look percentage in the interaction model. When anxiety at week 17 of pregnancy interacts with interpersonal traumatic exposure in childhood, the negative association with the infants’ look percentage is highly significant. LITE Life Incidence of Traumatic Events; IP interpersonal events; nIP non-interpersonal events.

Figure 2

The relationship between maternal anxiety at antenatal 17 weeks (Beck Anxiety Inventory, BAI week 17) and infant’s focused attention (look percentage, LP), is moderated by the level of interpersonal traumatic events (IP) in mother’s childhood measured by Life Incidence of Traumatic Events (LITE). Level 1 (solid line) represents mothers who exposed to less trauma in childhood compared to those at level 2 (dotted line).