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. 2026 Feb;26(1):294-305.
doi: 10.3758/s13415-025-01319-8. Epub 2025 Jun 20.

Neural reactivity to infant faces and trait mindfulness as prospective predictors of postpartum depressive symptoms

Sarah E Woronko  1 , Emilia F Cárdenas  2 , Christian A L Bean  2 , Resh S Gupta  3 , Kathryn L Humphreys  2 , Autumn Kujawa  2
Affiliations

Neural reactivity to infant faces and trait mindfulness as prospective predictors of postpartum depressive symptoms

Sarah E Woronko et al. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2026 Feb.

Abstract

Postpartum depression (PPD) impacts the health of both mothers and their offspring, underscoring the importance of early identification of risk factors for PPD. While both low-trait mindfulness and blunted neural processing to emotional stimuli (indexed by the late positive potential; LPP) have been separately associated with depression, previous work has highlighted an inverse relationship between trait mindfulness and neural emotional processing. Thus, it remains unclear how facets of trait mindfulness and neural emotional processing interact as risk factors for PPD. During the second trimester, pregnant women (n = 117) completed the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, the Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms (IDAS), and an infant face matching task while continuous electroencephalography was recorded. At 9 weeks postpartum, participants' PPD symptoms were reassessed with the IDAS. A series of hierarchical linear regression models revealed that acting with awareness, a trait mindfulness facet, and LPP to happy infant faces interacted to predict PPD symptoms (β = .217, p = .014, 95% CI [.045, .390]) after adjusting for depression levels in mid-pregnancy, such that low acting with awareness was associated with greater PPD symptoms when LPP to happy infant faces was 1 standard deviation below (β = -.548, SE = .150 , p < .001) and at the mean (β = -.309, SE = .106, p = .004). Findings suggest that an enhanced LPP to positively valenced stimuli may be protective against postpartum depression for those with low-trait mindfulness.

Keywords: Depression; LPP; Mindfulness; Pregnancy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Conflicts of interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. Ethics approval: Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Vanderbilt University Institutional Review Board through protocol number 200340. Consent to participate: Prior to participation, all participants provided informed consent in line with the protocols set by the Vanderbilt University Institutional Review Board and the Declaration of Helsinki. Consent for publication: Not applicable.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Example of a distressed trial and shape trial in the infant face matching task
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Average ERP waveforms (negative up) for shape, happy, and distressed conditions at occipitoparietal electrodes (O1, O2, Oz, Pz, CP1, CP2) 400–1,000 ms following stimulus presentation in the infant face matching task (left). The associated scalp topography (right) shows the distribution of responses to emotional vs. neutral (shape) stimuli and is associated with the late positive potential (LPP) event-related potential (ERP) 400–1,000 ms following stimulus presentation. (Color figure online)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Simple slopes analysis (left) showed that LPP to happy infant faces was a significant predictor at and below the mean for LPP to happy faces. Johnson–Neyman plot (right) shows the region of significance where LPP to happy infant faces was a significant moderator for the relationship between acting with awareness and PPD below 1.58 μV. (Color figure online)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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