Maternal Lifetime Trauma Exposure, Prenatal Cortisol, and Infant Negative Affectivity

Abstract

Little research has examined the impact of maternal lifetime trauma exposure on infant temperament. We examined associations between maternal trauma history and infant negative affectivity and modification by prenatal cortisol exposure in a sociodemographically diverse sample of mother–infant dyads. During pregnancy, mothers completed measures of lifetime trauma exposure and current stressors. Third-trimester cortisol output was assessed from maternal hair. When infants were 6 months old, mothers completed the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised. In analyses that controlled for infant sex and maternal age, education, race/ethnicity, and stress during pregnancy, greater maternal trauma exposure was associated with increased infant distress to limitations and sadness. Higher and lower prenatal cortisol exposure modified the magnitude and direction of association between maternal trauma history and infant rate of recovery from arousal. The association between maternal trauma history and infant distress to limitations was somewhat stronger among infants exposed to higher levels of prenatal cortisol. The analyses suggested that maternal lifetime trauma exposure is associated with several domains of infant negative affectivity independently of maternal stress exposures during pregnancy and that some of these associations may be modified by prenatal cortisol exposure. The findings have implications for understanding the intergenerational impact of trauma exposure on child developmental outcomes.

Prenatal maternal hair cortisol concentrations are related to maternal prenatal emotion dysregulation but not neurodevelopmental or birth outcomes

“…Furthermore, in previous work, associations were found between maternal plasma cortisol and cortisol measured in amniotic fluid (Glover, Bergman, Sarkar, & O'Connor, ), which may be a more accurate marker of fetal exposure to cortisol than maternal hair cortisol concentrations. It could also be that prenatal exposure to cortisol measured via maternal hair is moderated by other factors such as maternal trauma exposure (Bosquet Enlow et al, ), a possibility we will explore in future studies.…”

“…For example, prenatal exposure to maternal salivary cortisol at 30–32 weeks gestation was related to greater newborn negative reactivity (Davis et al, ). Infants with high anger and frustration were more likely to have mothers who experienced higher lifetime trauma and had high hair cortisol in the third trimester compared with infants whose mothers had a trauma history but low hair cortisol concentrations (Bosquet Enlow et al, ).…”

Associations among prenatal stress, maternal antioxidant intakes in pregnancy, and child temperament at age 30 months

“…42 The CRISYS-R is suitable for sociodemographically diverse populations, has good test/retest reliability, has been validated in English and Spanish in samples of parents, and has been utilized in several studies as a measure of prenatal stress. [43][44][45][46][47][48] The survey encompasses 11 domains (financial, legal, career, stability in relationships, medical issues pertaining to self, medical issues pertaining to others, safety in the community, safety in the home, housing problems, difficulty with authority, discrimination), with multiple items assessing each domain. Participants indicated whether each event had occurred in the previous 6 months and rated endorsed items as positive, negative, or neutral.…”

“…49 Thus, the number of domains with one or more negative events endorsed was summed to create a Negative Life Events domain score (NLE; possible range 0-11), as done in earlier research. 45,50 Higher scores indicate greater stress exposure during pregnancy. Because participants completed the CRISYS-R, on average, during the beginning of the third trimester (see 'Procedure' section), the measure assessed stress exposures from the beginning of pregnancy.…”

Urgent engagement in 9/11 pregnant widows and their infants: Transmission of trauma

“…Patterns of hyperarousal are a feature of stress disorders, including PTSD (Barlow, 2002) and parental trauma (Lyons-Ruth & Block, 1996;Scheeringa & Zeanah, 2001). Vigilant, high-arousal engagement may help explain the physiological correlates of trauma in infants, such as atypical cortisol (Enlow et al, 2017). Although higher arousal may be adaptive in a trauma, when fight/flight patterns are called for, in this setting of face-to-face interaction, we consider the higher arousal a potential source of risk.…”