Department of Clinical Psychology, School of Health in Social Science, The University of Edinburgh, Medical School (Doorway 6), Teviot Place, EH8 9AG Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, Sem Særlands vei Helga Engshus, 0371 Oslo, Norway.
J Affect Disord. 2025 Jan 15;369:995-1003. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2024.10.096. Epub 2024 Oct 22.
Although understanding of maternal hypomania in the postpartum period is gradually improving, the intergenerational pathways of risk associated with hypomania in the context of postpartum depression remain unknown. It is also unclear whether distinct or shared pathways of risk exist for infants exposed to different parental mood characteristics and whether these pathways are mediated by parental reflective functioning.
An online survey was administered to 1788 parents (89 % mothers, 50 % White) who were primary caregivers of a child under 2. Structural equation modelling techniques were employed to model direct and indirect associations between parental depressive symptoms, hypomanic traits and infant socio-emotional development, investigating the mediating role of parental reflective functioning.
Elevated levels of parental depressive symptoms, in the presence of hypomanic personality traits, were directly associated with infant socio-emotional challenges, without affecting parental reflective functioning. However, higher levels of parental hypomanic traits in the postnatal period displayed a fully mediated pathway of risk transmission to infants' socio-emotional development via their negative association with parental reflective functioning.
Results should be interpreted with caution as the reliance on self-and-parent-reported scales may have introduced biases influenced by individual perceptions and situational factors. Additionally, the cross-sectional design of this study inhibits establishing cause-and-effect relationships.
Overall, these results highlight the critical role of both parental depressive symptoms and hypomanic traits on infant socio-emotional development, suggesting that supporting parental mood regulation and mentalizing abilities in the postnatal period could reduce the risk of early maladaptive socio-emotional trajectories in children.
尽管人们对产后期间产妇轻躁狂的认识逐渐提高，但与产后抑郁症背景下轻躁狂相关的风险代际途径仍不清楚。也不清楚暴露于不同父母情绪特征的婴儿是否存在不同或共同的风险途径，以及这些途径是否由父母的反思功能所介导。
对 1788 名（89%为母亲，50%为白人）主要照顾 2 岁以下儿童的父母进行了在线调查。采用结构方程模型技术，对父母的抑郁症状、轻躁狂特征与婴儿社会情感发展之间的直接和间接关联进行建模，研究了父母反思功能的中介作用。
在存在轻躁狂人格特征的情况下，父母的抑郁症状水平升高与婴儿的社会情感挑战直接相关，而不会影响父母的反思功能。然而，在产后期间，较高水平的父母轻躁狂特征通过与父母反思功能的负相关，对婴儿的社会情感发展显示出完全中介的风险传递途径。
由于依赖自我报告和父母报告的量表，结果的解释应谨慎，因为这可能会引入个体感知和情境因素影响的偏差。此外，本研究的横断面设计限制了建立因果关系的能力。
总体而言，这些结果强调了父母的抑郁症状和轻躁狂特征对婴儿社会情感发展的重要作用，表明在产后期间支持父母的情绪调节和心理化能力可以降低儿童早期适应性不良的社会情感轨迹的风险。
