A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Maternal Depressive Symptoms During the Pre‐ and Postnatal Periods and Infant Attention to Emotional Faces
Authors: Kataja Eeva-Leena, Karlsson Linnea, Leppänen Jukka M., Pelto Juho, Häikiö Tuomo, Nolvi Saara, Pesonen Henri, Parsons Christine E., Hyönä Jukka, Karlsson Hasse
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc.
Publication year: 2020
Journal: Child Development
Volume: 91
Issue: 2
First page : 475
Last page: 480
eISSN: 1467-8624
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13152(external)
We examined how infants’ attentional disengagement from happy, fearful, neutral, and phase‐scrambled faces at 8 months, as assessed by eye tracking, is associated with trajectories of maternal depressive symptoms from early pregnancy to 6 months postpartum (decreasing n = 48, increasing n = 34, and consistently low symptom levels n = 280). The sample (mother–infant dyads belonging to a larger FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study) was collected between 5/2013–6/2016. The overall disengagement probability from faces to distractors was not related to maternal depressive symptoms, but fear bias was heightened in infants whose mothers reported decreasing or increasing depressive symptoms. Exacerbated attention to fearful faces in infants of mothers with depressive symptoms may be independent of the timing of the symptoms in the pre‐ and postnatal stages.