Pathways by which mothers’ adverse childhood experiences and emotionally responsive parenting predict maternal sensitivity to distress : the roles of cognitive, emotional, and physiological reactions to infant crying

Adverse childhood experiences and emotionally responsive parenting in childhood have been found to shape later parenting behaviors. However, it is critical for researchers to continue to focus on examining the mechanisms that explain how early childhood experiences shape later parenting to better understand areas for potential intervention. The goals of the current study were to (a) simultaneously examine the direct effects of mothers’ adverse childhood experiences and remembered emotionally responsive parenting in childhood on maternal sensitivity to infant distress at 2 months and (b) to understand the processes by which these effects occur by examining indirect effects via parenting-related cognition, parenting-related emotion, and emotion-related physiology, and moderating effects of remembered emotionally responsive parenting in childhood on the association between adverse childhood experiences and maternal sensitivity to distress. Participants included 299 mothers and their 2-month-old infants. During the third trimester, mothers retrospectively reported on their adverse childhood experiences and emotionally responsive parenting in childhood. Mothers’ cognitive, emotional, and physiological responses to videoclips of crying infants were also measured during the prenatal visit. When infants were approximately 2 months old, infant affect and maternal sensitivity was observationally coded during the re-engagement episode of the Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm. Results from the structural equation model indicated that mothers’ remembered emotionally responsive parenting in childhood was associated with lower prenatal negative cognition about infant crying and negative emotion in response to infant crying. Consistent with the hypothesis, lower prenatal negative cognition about infant crying was associated with higher maternal sensitivity to infant distress at 2 months, and there was an indirect effect of mothers’ remembered emotionally responsive parenting on maternal sensitivity to infant distress via lower negative cognition about infant crying. There was not an indirect effect from emotionally responsive parenting to maternal sensitivity to infant distress via negative emotion in response to infant crying. However, post hoc analyses demonstrated that mothers who recalled more emotionally responsive parenting in childhood experienced lower negative emotion in response to infant crying, which in turn predicted lower negative cognition about infant crying which ultimately predicted higher maternal sensitivity to infant distress at 2 months. Furthermore, there were no significant direct or indirect effects of mothers’ adverse childhood experiences on maternal sensitivity to infant distress at 2 months. Moreover, mothers’ remembered emotionally responsive parenting in childhood did not buffer the effects of adverse childhood experiences on prenatal cognitive, emotional, or physiological reactions to infant crying, or maternal sensitivity to infant distress at 2 months. These findings suggest that the legacy of emotionally responsive parenting is maintained through lower negative cognition about infant crying. Implications for parenting interventions, programs, and future research are discussed