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. 2022 Apr;25(2):527-531.
doi: 10.1007/s00737-022-01204-0. Epub 2022 Jan 11.

Emotion regulation during pregnancy: a call to action for increased research, screening, and intervention

Francesca Penner  1 , Helena J V Rutherford  2
Affiliations

Emotion regulation during pregnancy: a call to action for increased research, screening, and intervention

Francesca Penner et al. Arch Womens Ment Health. 2022 Apr.

Abstract

This paper serves as a call to action for increased focus on emotion regulation during pregnancy. We make this case by summarizing the limited research to date on this topic, which has demonstrated that emotion regulation in pregnant people has important mental health, caregiving, and developmental correlates throughout the perinatal period. Given its crosscutting and modifiable nature, bolstering emotion regulation during pregnancy has the potential for considerable intergenerational consequences, and it is critical to further investigate this construct.

Keywords: Emotion regulation; Expectant parents; Interventions; Perinatal mental health; Pregnancy; Prenatal period.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Conceptual model showing correlates of emotion regulation (ER) in pregnancy. Dashed boxes represent variables for which we lack research, though there is a need for more studies investigating all of the correlates shown here. Note that there are likely to be bidirectional associations between prenatal ER and other prenatal variables. It is also likely that prenatal ER indirectly influences postnatal outcomes via its associations with prenatal health and caregiving, in addition to direct effects depicted here
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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