Master of Science

thesisFetal Programming Theory suggests that prenatal exposure to maternal stress affects fetal development in utero indirectly through biological mechanisms. However, while researchers have focused on these effects in the context of stress and diagnosed psychopathology, relatively little research has focused on how programming occurs as a function of broader concerns that confer transdiagnostic vulnerability. I focused on maternal emotion dysregulation, a risk factor for psychopathology across the lifespan. Because emotion dysregulation and stress are complex constructs that can present in various ways, we used a multiple-levels-of-analysis approach, assessing pregnant women's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), coded observations of her behavior, and self-reported emotion dysregulation and stress. We recruited 162 pregnant women (Mage = 29.0 yrs., SDage = 5.2) and, following birth, their newborns to examine indirect effects of self-reported stress and emotion dysregulation on newborn neurobehavioral stress and self-regulation through maternal RSA. After running correlations, multiple regressions, and indirect effects models, I found no programming effects through RSA, nor did maternal self-report or RSA associate with newborn neurobehavior. However, coded maternal stress behavior collected prenatally predicted newborn neurobehavioral stress signs. These results suggest that future researchers may consider different biological mechanisms-or RSA at different gestational time points-to detect potential programming effects of emotion dysregulation. This study highlights the importance of iv using multiple levels of analysis when examining fetal programming and intergenerational transmission of emotion dysregulation and stress