Anxiety and Depression During Pregnancy and Temperament in Early Infancy: Findings From a Multi‐ethnic, Asian, Prospective Birth Cohort Study

Abstract

Maternal antenatal mood is associated with negative infant temperament. This link has not been substantiated in Asian populations. We evaluated the association between antenatal maternal mood and infant temperament among Asian mother-infant pairs. Antenatal maternal depression and anxiety were assessed using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (J. Cox, J. Holden, & R. Sagovsky, 1987) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (C. Spielberger, R. Gorsuch, R. Lushene, P. Vagg, & G. Jacobs, 1983), respectively, at 26 weeks of pregnancy and 3 months' postnatally. Infant temperament was evaluated with the Early Infant Temperament Questionnaire (B. Medoff-Cooper, W.B. Carey, & S.C. McDevitt, 1993) at 3 months. Factor analysis was performed to extract culturally relevant categories of temperamental traits. Linear regression was performed to examine the influences of antenatal maternal mood on the factor-model-derived infant temperament. Of the 609 mothers, 11% met risk criteria for depression, 17% for state-anxiety, and 19% for trait-anxiety during pregnancy. Factor analysis yielded three infant temperament factors: Emotionality and Attentional Regulation, Sensory Reactivity, and Regularity and Motor Expression, Cronbach's αs = 0.613, 0.712, and 0.752, respectively. Maternal antenatal state-anxiety, p < .001, and trait anxiety, p = .005, were associated with negative emotionality and poor attentional regulation, especially among Chinese, whereas depression was not, p = .090. There was an association between maternal antenatal anxiety and negative infant temperamental traits in this Asian sample.

Influences of prenatal and postnatal maternal depression on amygdala volume and microstructure in young children

“…Perinatal maternal depression is associated with an increased risk for emotional, 1, 2, 3 behavioral 4 and cognitive problems, 5 as well as multiple forms of psychopathology 6, 7, 8 in the offspring. Compelling evidence also suggests the influence of perinatal maternal depressive symptoms on brain development, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 particularly on the amygdala, a brain structure critical for emotional processing, 16, 17 stress reactivity 18 and vulnerability to depression.…”

Is prenatal maternal distress context-dependent? Comparing United States and the Netherlands

“…All of the instruments included in this study have been widely used with US and Dutch samples of pregnant women (e.g., Davis et al, 2007;Huizink et al, 2004;Rode and Kiel, 2016;van den Heuvel, van Assen, Glover, Claes, and Van den Bergh, 2018), and in perinatal research including cross-cultural comparisons (e.g., Chong et al, 2016).…”

“…When comparisons are made within the same country, pregnant women representing minority groups appear to be at greater risk for depression and anxiety (Robinson et al, 2016). Chong et al (2016) examined anxiety and depression among pregnant women in Singapore from Chinese, Malay, and Indian backgrounds, and found Indian women most likely to meet clinical cutoffs for state anxiety. Considering postpartum depressive symptoms among Vietnamese, Turkish, and Filipino women in Australia, Small et al (2003) noted higher rates of depression for Turkish women and differences in contributing factors (e.g., Filipino mothers did not mention family issues).…”

Antecedents of depression in children and adolescents

“…[ 29 ] A positive association between maternal antenatal anxiety and negative infant temperamental traits has also been reported. [ 30 ] This area of research is ongoing and is expected to bring about new findings in the future.…”