Attachment Security in Pregnancy Mediates the Association Between Maternal Childhood Maltreatment and Emotional and Behavioral Problems in Offspring

Roth, M; Humphreys, Kathryn L.; King, Lucy S.; Mondal, Sangeeta; Gotlib, Ian H.; Robakis, Thalia

doi:10.1007/s10578-020-01073-7

Cited by 6 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…It is possible that behavioral effects of maternal history of childhood maltreatment appear in dimensions that were not measured in this study, or that they might emerge at a later point in child development. We have elsewhere reported, and others have found, important associations of maternal history of childhood maltreatment with child behavioral outcomes at ages beyond 18 months 30 , 31 , 33 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 52%

“…We and others have shown that maternal attachment style, maltreatment history, and depressive symptoms are associated with detectable differences in preschooler behaviors, including increased frequency of both internalizing and externalizing behaviors 30 – 34 . An important next step is to investigate whether there are molecular events that are detectable in infancy that could prefigure the development of risk for socioemotional and behavioral problems in young children.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 72%

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Maternal attachment insecurity, maltreatment history, and depressive symptoms are associated with broad DNA methylation signatures in infants

et al. 2022

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The early environment, including maternal characteristics, provides many cues to young organisms that shape their long-term physical and mental health. Identifying the earliest molecular events that precede observable developmental outcomes could help identify children in need of support prior to the onset of physical and mental health difficulties. In this study, we examined whether mothers’ attachment insecurity, maltreatment history, and depressive symptoms were associated with alterations in DNA methylation patterns in their infants, and whether these correlates in the infant epigenome were associated with socioemotional and behavioral functioning in toddlerhood. We recruited 156 women oversampled for histories of depression, who completed psychiatric interviews and depression screening during pregnancy, then provided follow-up behavioral data on their children at 18 months. Buccal cell DNA was obtained from 32 of their infants for a large-scale analysis of methylation patterns across 5×10 6 individual CpG dinucleotides, using clustering-based significance criteria to control for multiple comparisons. We found that tens of thousands of individual infant CpGs were alternatively methylated in association with maternal attachment insecurity, maltreatment in childhood, and antenatal and postpartum depressive symptoms, including genes implicated in developmental patterning, cell-cell communication, hormonal regulation, immune function/inflammatory response, and neurotransmission. Density of DNA methylation at selected genes from the result set was also significantly associated with toddler socioemotional and behavioral problems. This is the first report to identify novel regions of the human infant genome at which DNA methylation patterns are associated longitudinally both with maternal characteristics and with offspring socioemotional and behavioral problems in toddlerhood.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 52%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 72%

Maternal attachment insecurity, maltreatment history, and depressive symptoms are associated with broad DNA methylation signatures in infants

et al. 2022

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“…120,121,123,125 By contrast, more secure maternal adult attachment style was associated with better child outcomes across multiple studies. 111,115,117 Further, though substance use was not assessed in this particular study, multiple separations or losses of caregivers were associated with less optimal offspring socioemotional development. 114 Finally, maternal depressive symptoms worsened and more optimal parenting buffered against effects of childhood violence exposure.…”

Section: Childhood Maltreatment Experiences and Impaired Internal Wor...mentioning

confidence: 77%

“…Of the 54 articles pertinent to associations between impaired internal working models and early parent-child relationships and offspring outcomes, 14,59,62,63,71,72,76,77,92,[107][108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121][122][123][124][126][127][128][129][130]134,139,147,156,[165][166][167][168][169][170][171][172][173][174][175][176][177][178]…”

Section: Perinatal Substance Use and Impaired Internal Working Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maternal Childhood Maltreatment, Internal Working Models, and Perinatal Substance Use: Is There a Role for Hyperkatifeia? A Systematic Review

et al. 2023

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The parent-infant relationship is critical for socioemotional development and is adversely impacted by perinatal substance use. This systematic review posits that the mechanisms underlying these risks to mother-infant relationships center on 3 primary processes: (1) mothers’ childhood maltreatment experiences; (2) attachment styles and consequent internal working models of interpersonal relationships; and (3) perinatal substance use. Further, the review considers the role of hyperkatifeia, or hypersensitivity to negative affect which occurs when people with substance use disorders are not using substances, and which drives the negative reinforcement in addiction. The authors performed a systematic review of articles (published 2000-2022) related to these constructs and their impact on mother-infant relationships and offspring outcomes, including original clinical research articles addressing relationships between these constructs, and excluding case studies, reviews, non-human animal studies, intervention studies, studies with fewer than 30% female-sex participants, clinical guidelines, studies limited to obstetric outcomes, mechanistic/biological studies, and studies with methodological issues precluding interpretation. Overall 1844 articles were screened, 377 were selected for full text review, and data were extracted from 157 articles. Results revealed strong relationships between mothers’ childhood maltreatment experiences, less optimal internal working models, and increased risk for perinatal substance use, and importantly, all of these predictors interacted with hyperkatifeia and exerted a marked impact on mother-infant relationships with less data available on offspring outcomes. These data strongly support the need for future studies addressing the additive impact of maternal childhood maltreatment experiences, suboptimal internal working models, and perinatal substance use, with hyperkatifeia as a potential moderator, and their interacting effects on mother-infant socioemotional outcomes.

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“…Attachment styles are patterns of interactions in intimate relationships (Widom, Czaja, Kozakowski, & Chauhan, 2018), and thus important family-level factors at theoretical and practical level. Among the three studies investigating the role of maternal–child attachment in the pathway between MCA and children's emotional-behavioural development, two found that maternal avoidant attachment (Pereira et al, 2018) and insecure infant attachment (Pasalich et al, 2016) significantly mediated 35 and 64% of the association between MCA and child externalising problems, while the other study indicated that maternal secure attachment was protective, and mediated 31% of the total effect between MCA and child total behavioural problems (Roth et al, 2021).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mediators and moderators in the relationship between maternal childhood adversity and children's emotional and behavioural development: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Biaggi

Sacchi

et al. 2022

Psychol. Med.

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Maternal experiences of childhood adversity can increase the risk of emotional and behavioural problems in their children. This systematic review and meta-analysis provide the first narrative and quantitative synthesis of the mediators and moderators involved in the link between maternal childhood adversity and children's emotional and behavioural development. We searched EMBASE, PsycINFO, Medline, Cochrane Library, grey literature and reference lists. Studies published up to February 2021 were included if they explored mediators or moderators between maternal childhood adversity and their children's emotional and behavioural development. Data were synthesised narratively and quantitatively by meta-analytic approaches. The search yielded 781 articles, with 74 full-text articles reviewed, and 41 studies meeting inclusion criteria. Maternal mental health was a significant individual-level mediator, while child traumatic experiences and insecure maternal–child attachment were consistent family-level mediators. However, the evidence for community-level mediators was limited. A meta-analysis of nine single-mediating analyses from five studies indicated three mediating pathways: maternal depression, negative parenting practices and maternal insecure attachment, with pooled indirect standardised effects of 0.10 [95% CI (0.03–0.17)), 0.01 (95% CI (−0.02 to 0.04)] and 0.07 [95% CI (0.01–0.12)], respectively. Research studies on moderators were few and identified some individual-level factors, such as child sex (e.g. the mediating role of parenting practices being only significant in girls), biological factors (e.g. maternal cortisol level) and genetic factors (e.g. child's serotonin-transporter genotype). In conclusion, maternal depression and maternal insecure attachment are two established mediating pathways that can explain the link between maternal childhood adversity and their children's emotional and behavioural development and offer opportunities for intervention.

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Attachment Security in Pregnancy Mediates the Association Between Maternal Childhood Maltreatment and Emotional and Behavioral Problems in Offspring

Cited by 6 publications

References 65 publications

Maternal attachment insecurity, maltreatment history, and depressive symptoms are associated with broad DNA methylation signatures in infants

Maternal attachment insecurity, maltreatment history, and depressive symptoms are associated with broad DNA methylation signatures in infants

Maternal Childhood Maltreatment, Internal Working Models, and Perinatal Substance Use: Is There a Role for Hyperkatifeia? A Systematic Review

Mediators and moderators in the relationship between maternal childhood adversity and children's emotional and behavioural development: a systematic review and meta-analysis

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