Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Sep 14;10(18):e37673.
doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e37673. eCollection 2024 Sep 30.

Understanding pathways from feeding difficulties of children to mental health risks of mothers at critical stages of childrearing: Does social support make a difference?

Qi Liang  1 , Zixin Ye  1 , Chunchan Han  2 , Liuzhi Hong  1 , Juan Fang  1 , Jiahui Huang  1 , Jiayi Tang  1 , Zhaohong Cai  2 , Ruiliang Wang  2 , Yanlong Liu  1 , Shaochang Wu  3 , Li Chen  4
Affiliations

Understanding pathways from feeding difficulties of children to mental health risks of mothers at critical stages of childrearing: Does social support make a difference?

Qi Liang et al. Heliyon. .

Abstract

Background: Identifying the factors influencing mental health of mothers at critical stages of childrearing is significant for the implementation of effective promotion policies and counselling activities.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the relationships between children's feeding difficulties, marital quality, parenting quality and maternal mental health risks amidst Chinese mothers with high and low social support using a multi-group structural equation modelling approach.

Participants: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Wenzhou, China and a total of 772 mothers with children aged 0-3 were surveyed by using purposive sampling.

Findings: Results showed that of the 772 participants, 23.6 % reported anxiety, 50.1 % reported depression, 91.2 % reported insomnia, and 24 % reported feeding difficulties. The joint occurrence of multiple forms of mental problems is the most commonly reported features of mental health risks among mothers. The positive association between feeding difficulties of children and mental health risks of mothers was mediated by marital quality and parenting quality. In addition, feeding difficulties were not related to mental health risks in high social support group but all the relationships were significant in low social support group.

Conclusions: These findings highlight the importance of the specific interventions to enhance social support, marital quality and parenting quality for improving mental health of mothers of children with feeding difficulties.

Keywords: Feeding difficulties; Marital quality; Mental health; Parenting quality; Structural equation model.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Comorbidity rates of mental health risks among mothers with children aged 0–3 years in Wenzhou, China (March–September 2021). Note. An anxiety, Dep depression, In insomnia.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The chain mediated model of feeding difficulties of children. (a) Full model; (b) High social support group model; (c) Low social support group model.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Hasbani E.C., et al. How parents' feeding styles, attitudes, and multifactorial aspects are associated with feeding difficulties in children. BMC Pediatr. 2023;23(1):543. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Su S., Yan M. Advances in support strategies for preterm infants with oral feeding difficulties. China Nurs. Manag. 2022;22:1569–1573.
    1. Augustin M., et al. Effects of a mobile-based intervention for parents of children with crying, sleeping, and feeding problems: randomized controlled trial. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2023;11 doi: 10.2196/41804. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Elliott S., Bowen S. Defending motherhood: morality, responsibility, and double binds in feeding children. J. Marriage Fam. 2018;80(2):499–520. doi: 10.1111/jomf.12465. - DOI
    1. Broerman R. Diathesis-stress model. Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences. 2020:1107–1109.

LinkOut - more resources