Cortisol and testosterone concentrations during the prenatal and postpartum period forecast later caregiving quality in mothers and fathers

Beijers, Roseriet; Breugelmans, Sara; Brett, Bonnie E.; Willemsen, Yvonne; Bos, Peter A.; Weerth, Carolina de

doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2022.105177

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…Based on our results, mothers and non-mothers differ in their motivation to exert effort to view emotional infant faces when levels of key hormones are considered. In addition, testosterone seems to be negatively associated with motivation toward emotional infant faces, in line with other evidence pointing to negative associations between testosterone levels and nurturant parenting behaviors and attention to infant stimuli (Deady et al, 2006;Edelstein et al, 2017;Hermans et al, 2006) although such associations could be more pronounced in fathers (Beijers et al, 2022;Bos et al, 2018;Meijer et al, 2019). In the future, studying fathers in a similar setting is essential.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Impact of parity and salivary hormonal levels on motivation towards infant emotions

Sinisalo,

Hahn,

Jones

et al. 2024

Preprint

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We studied 54 Finnish first-time mothers and 42 non-mothers in a pay-per-view key-press task where the participants were shown 20 infant faces with smiling and crying expressions. Participants were able to adjust the time each face was visible. In addition, salivary testosterone, estradiol, and cortisol levels were measured and their impact on motivation towards infants analyzed. When controlling for the hormonal levels, happy infant faces were viewed longer than crying faces and there was no difference in mean viewing times between mothers and non-mothers. An interaction between parity and emotion emerged: mothers were more motivated to view happy faces and less motivated to view crying infant faces than non-mothers. Testosterone had a significant effect on viewing times: the higher the testosterone levels were, the shorter amount of time infant faces were viewed. This indicates that testosterone is inversely associated with approach motivation to emotional infant stimuli. This study is the first to compare mothers and non-mothers in a task measuring motivational responses to infant stimuli and indicates that the difference between the approach motivation caused by happy and distressed infant emotions might be more heightened in new mothers.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Impact of parity and salivary hormonal levels on motivation towards infant emotions

Sinisalo,

Hahn,

Jones

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…Contrary to hypotheses, hair GCs were not significantly associated with impaired bonding across the postpartum period. Results contradict findings of traditional cortisol and HairF studies, which mainly delineated an association between cortisol and impaired parenting (Beijers et al, 2022 ; Crockett et al, 2013 ; Finegood et al, 2016 ; but see Bos et al, 2018 ). Diverging findings could be due to differences in sample characteristics, as some studies that found a significant effect examined samples suffering from chronic poverty (Crockett et al, 2013 ; Finegood et al, 2016 ) or clinical samples (Juul et al, 2016 ; Nyström-Hansen et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

“…In studies that did not explicitly address mothers who had experienced CM and that employed shorter-term cortisol measures, both directions of cortisol dysregulation were found to be related to less optimal parenting (Crockett et al, 2013 ; Finegood et al, 2016 ). In contrast, while Bos et al ( 2018 ) found no association between prenatal and postpartum maternal cortisol levels and parenting behaviour at 6 weeks postpartum, Beijers et al ( 2022 ) found salivary cortisol levels at 6 weeks postpartum to be positively related to caregiving quality when offspring were 3 years old. Initial findings employing hair cortisol analysis indicate that increased maternal HairF may be related to poorer parenting at 4–6 months postpartum (Nyström-Hansen et al, 2019 ; Tarullo AR et al, 2017 ) and might act as a mediator of the association of CM and child abuse potential when children were aged 5–12 years (Kluczniok et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

The effect of maternal childhood maltreatment on postpartum mother–child bonding and maternal hair glucocorticoids

Bergunde,

Karl,

Borrmeister

et al. 2024

European Journal of Psychotraumatology

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Background: Maternal experiences of childhood maltreatment (CM) constitute a risk factor for impairments in the mother–child relationship. One mechanism underlying this intergenerational transmission may be maternal hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis dysregulation. Yet, few studies have examined different maltreatment subtypes, including emotional neglect, considered concurrent depressive symptoms, and used long-term integrated glucocorticoid measures. Objective: This study aimed to investigate associations between maternal CM history, postpartum glucocorticoids in hair, and mother–child bonding. In exploratory analyses, we tested whether specific subtypes of CM had differential implications for glucocorticoid secretion and bonding. Methods: During pregnancy, N = 269 mothers from the prospective cohort study DREAM HAIR provided retrospective information on CM and current information regarding psychological and hair-related variables. Hair samples were collected 8 weeks after delivery for quantification of maternal long-term hair cortisol and cortisone concentrations in 2-cm scalp-near hair samples. Mother–child bonding was measured 8 weeks and 14 months after birth using the Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire. Results: While bivariate correlations revealed significant associations of CM with bonding and hair cortisol, regression findings showed CM was associated with impaired bonding 8 weeks (overall CM trend-level; emotional neglect p = .038) and 14 months (emotional neglect trend level p = .041) after birth, however not after controlling for depressive symptoms at the time point of the outcome. In regression analyses, CM was not associated with maternal hair glucocorticoids 8 weeks postpartum. Maternal hair glucocorticoid concentrations were not related to mother–child bonding and did not mediate associations between CM and mother–child bonding. Conclusion: Data tentatively suggest that mothers with CM experiences, in particular emotional neglect, may be at risk for suboptimal bonding to their child, however current depressive symptoms seem to be more important. Our data provide no evidence for a crucial role of glucocorticoid secretion, yet aetiological processes of long-term glucocorticoid secretion and bonding are complex and more severely affected samples should be examined.

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“…Male T declines following the birth of offspring (see Gettler, 2020 for review). This decline is evident in other species where paternal care is relied upon ( Wingfield et al, 2020 ) and is related to levels of parenting effort across cultures (e.g., Gettler et al, 2011 ; Corpuz et al, 2021 ; Beijers et al, 2022 ; see Grebe et al, 2019 for review). According to the Challenge Hypothesis ( Wingfield et al, 1990 ), T declines following the arrival of offspring to facilitate a shift away from mating effort (e.g., behaviors tied to dominance, intra/intersexual competition, status-seeking) in favor of a behavioral suite that includes direct (e.g., feeding) and indirect (e.g., provisioning) parenting effort.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

No evidence for relationship between paternal post-partum depressive symptoms and testosterone or cortisol in first-time fathers

Kotov,

Corpuz

2024

Front. Psychol.

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Male life history strategies are regulated by the neuroendocrine system. Testosterone (T) and cortisol regulate male behaviors including parenting and facilitate managing tradeoffs at key transitions in development such as first-time fatherhood. Both hormones demonstrate marked fluctuations in the postnatal period, and this presents an opportunity to investigate the role of T and cortisol in postpartum depressive symptoms—comparably less studied in fathers than in mothers in the evolutionary literature. Prior work on depressive symptoms has yet to integrate insights from the “dual hormone hypothesis (DHH)” which has focused on how T and cortisol interact to jointly regulate traits associated with dominance and status-seeking (i.e., mating effort) but has yet to be included in models of parenting effort. In this research, we use secondary data to investigate the relationship between DHH and traits ostensibly opposed to status seeking (i.e., depressive symptoms). First-time fathers (n = 193) provided morning saliva samples 10 months following parturition and reported on the presence of depressive symptoms (BDI-II). Responses were decomposed into three factors: cognitive, affective, and somatic. Using hybrid latent variable structural equation modeling, we did not find evidence that T predicted variability in cognitive, affective, or somatic depressive symptom factors. We found a null effect for cortisol as well. Finally, we could not find evidence that the DHH variable (T × cortisol interaction) predicted any variability in cognitive, affective, or somatic depressive symptoms. While we did not find evidence to support our hypotheses using a secondary data set, this study contributes to research on the neuroendocrinology of depression in fathers. Discussion focuses on the limitations of sample demographics, timing of saliva and self-report collection, and the lack of extant theory specific to paternal postpartum depression.

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Cortisol and testosterone concentrations during the prenatal and postpartum period forecast later caregiving quality in mothers and fathers

Cited by 7 publications

References 65 publications

Impact of parity and salivary hormonal levels on motivation towards infant emotions

Impact of parity and salivary hormonal levels on motivation towards infant emotions

The effect of maternal childhood maltreatment on postpartum mother–child bonding and maternal hair glucocorticoids

No evidence for relationship between paternal post-partum depressive symptoms and testosterone or cortisol in first-time fathers

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