Risky shifts: How the timing and course of mothers' depressive symptoms across the perinatal period shape their own and infant's stress response profiles

Abstract

We investigated the effects of timing and the course of maternal perinatal depressive symptoms on mother-infant hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) response profiles during an attachment stressor, as well as on within-dyad synchrony of stress profiles: coordination of HPA and sympathetic nervous system and infant-mother HPA attunement. Mothers (n = 86) completed the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale during pregnancy (Time 1 [T1]) and at 5 months (T2) and 18 months (T3) postnatal. At T3 mother-infant dyads completed the Strange Situation, and four saliva samples collected from both mothers and infants were assayed for cortisol and α-amylase. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to predict mother-infant cortisol response trajectories and within-dyad synchronies by main and interactive effects of T1-T3 Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale scores. Main effects of earlier (T1, T2) depressive symptoms predicted mothers' cortisol trajectories and coordination, and interactions of T1 with postnatal (T2 and T3) symptoms predicted infants' cortisol trajectories, coordination, and attunement. Decomposition of interactions revealed more marked effects on infant cortisol trajectories when the mother shifted from higher to lower depressive symptoms (or vice versa) across the perinatal period. Shifts from lower to higher symptoms also predicted inverse coordination of cortisol with salivary α-amylase and greater attunement of infant with mother cortisol. Implications for the development and transmission of stress dysregulation are discussed.

Refining the multisystem view of the stress response: Coordination among cortisol, alpha-amylase, and subjective stress in response to relationship conflict

“…Combined with earlier research showing matched phase coordination among non-depressed, but not depressed, women and their infants (Laurent et al, 2011), the current finding that women reporting more positive stress anticipation showed stronger cortisol-sAA coordination lends preliminary support to this idea. It may be that positive appraisals allowed active challenge reactions to more closely support threat reactions to the stressor.…”

“…A study testing both forward- and backward-lagged effects in an all-male sample yielded mixed evidence for positive vs. negative associations between cortisol and sAA (Engert et al, 2011). The only previous study of matched phase coordination as operationalized here found positive cortisol-sAA associations only among non-depressed women and their infants (Laurent et al, 2011). Given this and other evidence that discordance between HPA and ANS responses may signal mental health problems (Ali & Pruessner, 2012), a key task at this point is to determine how these systems are functionally related in real-life stress contexts and what predicts coordination vs. discordance.…”

“…In other words, a person's relative increases in cortisol from one time point to the next predict increases in sAA, and response trajectories unfold in a parallel fashion (see Laurent, Ablow, & Measelle, 2011, for further explanation of cross-system coordination). This may offer a more situational measure of how threat reactions (indexed by HPA activity) trigger effort/challenge reactions (indexed by ANS activity) to confront the stressor within a given stress episode.…”

“…We are aware of no published studies that assess both cortisol and sAA responses to interpersonal stress within a close adult relationship, and of only three studies of parent-child relationships (Laurent et al, 2011, 2012; Granger et al, 2006). Thus, research on normative adolescent/young adult couples' HPA and ANS responses to interpersonal relationship stress is urgently needed to recognize the basis for emergent mental health vulnerabilities and inform intervention targets.…”

More than two decades after adoption: Associations between infant attachment, early maternal sensitivity and the diurnal cortisol curve of adopted young adults

“…Although all of our adoptees were adopted at a very young age, it still is possible that prenatal and perinatal problems set the stage for HPA-axis functioning (Gunnar & Fisher, 2006). This is consistent with evidence that the prenatal and perinatal periods are of importance for child development (e.g., Laurent, Ablow, & Measelle, 2011;Talge, Neal, & Glover, 2007). In our sample, the birthmothers of the adoptees may have been at a relatively high risk for depression, stress, malnutrition and other (maternity) problems.…”