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Open Access 01-10-2017 | Original Article

From prenatal anxiety to parenting stress: a longitudinal study

Authors: A.C. Huizink, B. Menting, M.H.M. De Moor, M. L. Verhage, F.C. Kunseler, C. Schuengel, M. Oosterman

Published in: Archives of Women's Mental Health | Issue 5/2017

Abstract

The objective of this study was to explore how maternal mood during pregnancy, i.e., general anxiety, pregnancy-specific anxiety, and depression predicted parenting stress 3 months after giving birth, thereby shaping the child’s early postnatal environmental circumstances. To this end, data were used from 1073 women participating in the Dutch longitudinal cohort Generations², which studies first-time pregnant mothers during pregnancy and across the transition to parenthood. Women filled out the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Pregnancy-Related Anxiety Questionnaire-revised (PRAQ-R), and Beck Depression Index (BDI) three times during pregnancy: at 12, 22, and 32 weeks gestational age. Three months postpartum, a parenting stress questionnaire was filled out yielding seven different parenting constructs. Latent scores were computed for each of the repeatedly measured maternal mood variables with Mplus and parenting stress constructs were simultaneously regressed on these latent scores. Results showed that trait anxiety and pregnancy-specific anxiety were uniquely related to almost all parenting stress constructs, taking depression into account. Early prevention and intervention to reduce maternal anxiety in pregnancy could hold the key for a more advantageous trajectory of early postnatal parenting.

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Title: From prenatal anxiety to parenting stress: a longitudinal study
Authors: A.C. Huizink
B. Menting
M.H.M. De Moor
M. L. Verhage
F.C. Kunseler
C. Schuengel
M. Oosterman
Publication date: 01-10-2017
Publisher: Springer Vienna
Published in: Archives of Women's Mental Health / Issue 5/2017
Print ISSN: 1434-1816
Electronic ISSN: 1435-1102
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-017-0746-5

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From prenatal anxiety to parenting stress: a longitudinal study

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