We investigated how exogenous variation in exposure to the COVID‐19 pandemic during the first year of life is related to infant development, maternal mental health, and perceived stress. Ninety‐three socioeconomically diverse pregnant women were recruited before the pandemic to participate in a longitudinal study. Infants ranged in age at the beginning of lockdown (0–9.5 months old), thus experiencing different durations of pandemic exposure across the first year of life. The duration of pandemic exposure was not associated with family demographic characteristics, suggesting it captured exogenous variability. We tested associations between this exogenous variation in pandemic exposure and child and family outcomes. We also examined whether mother‐reported disruptive life events were correlated with child and family outcomes. We found no association between duration of pandemic exposure in the first year of life and infant socioemotional problems, infant language development, or maternal mental health and perceived stress symptoms, at 12 or 24 months. However, we found that self‐reported exposure to pandemic‐related disruptive life events predicted greater maternal depression, anxiety, and perceived stress at 12 months, and greater depression and anxiety at 24 months. Socioeconomic status did not moderate these associations. These findings suggest cautious optimism for infants raised during this period.
Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) has far-reaching linkages with children's cognitive and socioemotional development, academic achievement, health, and brain structure and function. Rather than focusing on understandings about the neuroscience of socioeconomic inequality that have recently been reviewed elsewhere, the present article reviews several new directions in the field, beginning first with a consideration of the deficit versus adaptation framework. Although scientists largely agree that socioeconomic disparities in brain development are experience-dependent phenomena rooted in neuroplasticity, historically, such differences have been framed as deficits, which may benefit from intervention. However, emerging research suggests that some developmental differences among children experiencing adversity may alternatively be considered context-appropriate adaptations to the individual's environment. We next discuss how socioeconomic circumstances are inextricably intertwined with race, and consider how measurement of racism and discrimination must be part of a full understanding of the neuroscience of socioeconomic inequality. We argue that scientists must consciously recruit racially and socioeconomically diverse samples-and include measures of SES, race, and discrimination in analyses-to promote a more complete understanding of the neuroplasticity specifically, and psychological science more broadly. We discuss the extent to which researcher and editor positionality have contributed to these problems historically, and conclude by considering paths forward.
Stress has been linked with children’s socioemotional problems and lower language scores, particularly among children raised in socioeconomically disadvantaged circumstances. Much of the work examining the relations among stress, language, and socioemotional functioning have relied on assessments of a single dimension of maternal stress. However, stress can stem from different sources, and people may appraise stressors differently. Taking a dimensional approach, this manuscript characterizes stress in multiple ways: as an overall composite; across the constructs of psychological appraisal vs. environmental stressors; and the independent contributions of a variety assessments. Data are from 548 mother–infant dyads (M = 13.14 months, SD = 2.11) who served as the control group for a poverty reduction clinical trial. Mothers completed questionnaires regarding the different types of stresses they may have experienced, as well as their children’s language and socioemotional development. Results indicate that, collectively, higher maternal report of stress is associated with lower reports of children’s socioemotional and language development. In addition, maternal psychological appraisals of stress were associated with both socioemotional and language development, whereas reports of environmental stressors were only associated with socioemotional development. Together, these findings suggest that maternal reports of stress are associated with lower maternal report of child development among low-income children.
Importance: Children experiencing poverty are more likely to experience worse health outcomes during the first few years of life, including injury, chronic illness, worse nutrition, and poorer sleep. The extent to which a poverty reduction intervention improves children's health, nutrition, sleep, and healthcare utilization is unknown. Objective: To determine the effect of a 3-year, monthly unconditional cash transfer on health, nutrition, sleep, and healthcare utilization of children experiencing poverty who are healthy at birth. Design: Longitudinal randomized control trial Setting: Mother-infant dyads were recruited from postpartum wards in 12 hospitals in four cities across the U.S. Participants: 1,000 mothers were enrolled in the study. Eligibility criteria included: an annual income below the federal poverty line, being of legal age for consent, speaking English or Spanish, residing in the state of recruitment, and having an infant admitted to the well-baby nursery with plans to be discharged to the custody of the mother. Intervention: Mothers were randomly assigned to receive either a high-cash gift ($333 per month, or $3,996 per year; n=400) or a low-cash gift ($20 per month, or $240 per year; n=600) for the first several years of their child's life. Main Outcomes and Measures: Pre-registered maternal assessments of the focal child's health, nutrition, sleep, and healthcare utilization were collected at children's ages 1, 2, and 3. Results: Enrolled participants were majority Black (42%) and Hispanic (41%). 857 mothers participated in all three waves of data collection. We found no statistically detectable differences between the high-cash and low-cash gift groups in maternal assessments of children's overall health, sleep, or healthcare utilization. However, mothers in the high-cash gift group reported higher child consumption of fresh produce compared with mothers in the low-cash gift group at age 2, the only time point it was measured (β=0.17, SE=0.07, p=0.03). Conclusions and Relevance: In this RCT, unconditional cash transfers to mothers experiencing poverty did not improve their reports of their child's health, sleep, or healthcare utilization. However, stable income support of this magnitude improved toddler's consumption of fresh produce. Healthy newborns tend to grow into healthy toddlers, and the impacts of poverty reduction on children's health and sleep may not be fully borne out until later in life.
The current study examined whether within‐family changes in child care quality and quantity predicted subsequent changes in home environment quality and maternal depression across early childhood (6 to 54 months of age). Data were drawn from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (n = 1239; 77% White; 48% female; data collection from 1991 to 1996), and were analyzed using Random Intercept Cross‐Lagged Panel Models. Within‐family increases in child care quality predicted modest increases in home environment quality (β = .13–.17). These effects were most robust from child age 6 to 15 months. Increases in child care quality produced small, statistically non‐significant, reductions in depression. Time‐specific increases in child care quantity were not consistently predictive of either outcome.
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