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BackgroundCOVID-19 pandemic characterised a unique and vulnerable social, emotional, and health environment for pregnancy, with potential long-lasting risks to maternal and child health outcomes. In women who were pregnant at the peak of COVID-19 pandemic, we investigated the association between pandemic-related concerns about pregnancy and delivery and both the parent's (i.e. maternal parenting stress) and the infant's (i.e. emotional-behavioral problems) outcomes 12 months after birth.MethodsA sample of 352 Italian pregnant women completed a web-based survey from 8 April to 4 May 2020 and a follow-up at 12 months after delivery. Maternal assessment in pregnancy covered prenatal measures for: pandemic-related concerns about pregnancy and childbirth, COVID-19 stressful events exposure, pandemic psychological stress, and mental-health symptoms (i.e. depression, anxiety). The 12 months' assessment covered post-partum measures of social support, parenting stress and maternal reports of infants' behavioral problems.ResultsThe results of the Quasi-Poisson regression models on the association between COVID-19 related influencing factors and parenting stress and infant's behavioral problems showed that the presence of higher pandemic-related concerns about pregnancy and childbirth scores was associated with greater total and internalising behavioral problems but not with parenting stress levels.ConclusionPerinatal mother-infant health has been sensitively threatened by pandemic consequences with maternal concerns about childbirth in pregnancy being associated with 12 months' children's behavioral outcomes. There is a need to invest in psychological support for perinatal women throughout the transition to parenthood to protect risk conditions before they get chronic or severe and influence offspring development.

For mother-infant health especially, the pandemic has brought multiple stressors inside a susceptible psychobiological system. We study the longitudinal associations between maternal prenatal and postpartum: (a) COVID-19 stressful events exposure, (b) pandemic psychological stress, and (c) mental health and infants’ negative affect. A sample of 643 Italian pregnant women completed a web-based survey from April 8th to May 4th, 2020 and a follow-up at 6 months after delivery. Maternal assessment covered prenatal and postpartum measures for: COVID-19 stressful events exposure, pandemic psychological stress, mental health symptoms (i.e., depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder) and postpartum, social support and report of infants’ negative affect. Maternal mental health symptoms during pregnancy, at the peak of pandemic, is longitudinally associated with infant negative affect, with postpartum mental health mediating this association. Also, maternal COVID-19 stressful events exposure in postpartum is associated with negative affect at 6 months mediated by postpartum mental health symptoms. Maternal pandemic psychological stress during pregnancy predicted mental health symptoms in postpartum. The study supports the association between pandemic-related maternal health across pregnancy and postpartum and offspring’s development (i.e., negative affect). It also puts the spotlight on mental health risk in women experiencing lockdown during pregnancy, especially when feeling high psychological stress in pregnancy or when directly exposed to COVID-19 stressful events postpartum.

The present study focuses upon an early step in the transition to parenthood when partners start to plan their pregnancies. We aimed to understand the determinants of coparenting in a triadic interactive system prior to conception, exploring the role of partners' attachment histories in their coordination of pre-conception coparenting behaviors. We also wondered how dyadic adjustment of the conjugal couple might interact with partners' attachment similarity in predicting coparenting behavior. We recruited 111 unmarried lesbian, gay, and heterosexual couples across Italy (N = 49) and Belgium (N = 62), resulting in 222 participants in total (64 gays; 62 lesbians; 96 heterosexuals). For each couple, we computed a Couple Average Attachment Security (CAAS) score and a Couple Difference in Attachment Security (CDAS) score. Our results revealed a significant interaction effect between couples' average attachment security and their intra-couple differences in attachment security. We found that partners' average level of attachment security impacted their pre-conception coparental alliance, only when both partners had similar levels of attachment security. Results showed that similar patterns of attachment security between partners predicted the quality of coparental interactions irrespective of whether the potential parenting couple comprised two mothers, two fathers, or a heterosexual mother and father.

Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is defined as a fetal growth retardation, resulting in an estimated fetal weight less than the 10th centile for gestational age. IUGR developing brain is affected by the atypical fetal growth, presenting altered structure and connectivity and increased risk for neurodevelopmental impairments. Behaviorally, IUGR infants show reduced responsiveness and engagement with human faces during mother-child exchanges. The neural mechanisms of these patterns of interactions remain unexplored, as well as their potential role in shaping socio-cognitive trajectories of development. Aim of this research project will be to longitudinally investigate mother-infant interactions and infant’s event-related potential (ERP) components of face processing (infant N170, P400, Negative central) in 4 and 9 months IUGR as potential early markers of expected atypical cognitive and behavioral outcomes observed at 12 months. Thirty IUGR participants will be recruited after receiving the in utero diagnosis (>28th gestational week). Thirty healthy infants will be enrolled as the control group. Maternal environment will be assessed via Emotional Availability Scales (EASs), with child responsiveness and maternal sensitivity as variables of interest. Infants’ scalp-recorded cortical activity in response to social and non-social stimuli will be investigated using a high-density EEG system (EGI Geodesic system). Neurodevelopment will be measured at 12 months of child’s life, using Bayley Scales for Infant Development (BSID), while the possible presence of emotional-behavioral problems will be rated via Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). We expect that being IUGR significantly affects cognitive and behavioral outcomes, through mediation effects of both infants’ neural and behavioral capacity to respond to social stimuli. Indeed, we expect an altered response to social stimuli in IUGR infants, resulting in smaller ERP components amplitude in response to human faces

Maternal depression represents an important social/environmental factor in early childhood; however, its effect on children's motor development may vary depending on the role of infants' dispositional variables. The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of the interaction between maternal depressive symptoms in the first two years of a child's life and the child's temperamental negative emotionality on motor development during this time. Using a cross-sectional study, we assessed 272 infants aged 0 to 24 months old and their mothers. We measured the following variables: maternal depression, infant's negative emotionality, and motor development. A three-way interaction effect highlights that negative emotionality in infants and maternal depression together affect children's overall motor growth trajectory. Infants with low negative emotionality display no effect of maternal depression on motor development. Conversely, infants with high negative emotionality seem to be more susceptible to the effect of maternal depression. Specifically, high maternal depression tends to foster the negative effect of infant's negativity on motor development across time, albeit not significantly. Finally, the absence of maternal depression significantly buffers negative temperament in infants. Findings highlighted the importance of integrating different perspectives when describing early motor growth. In fact, only when considering the interdependence of potential predictors their effect on the motor growth significantly emerges. Screening for early temperamental vulnerability might help in tailoring interventions to prevent maternal depression from affecting infants' motor development.

Emotional maltreatment is proved to be related to, or even predictive of, several psychological and physical later impairments. Somatization has a higher incidence among individuals with a history of maltreatment, and among females. Studies highlighted the importance to investigate the role of mediating factors between childhood maltreatment and adult sympto-matology. Although little is known about the specific case of somatic unexplained symptoms, its relation with childhood maltreatment seems to be influenced by the role of romantic attachment. The main objective of our study is to check the effect of emotional maltreatment on early-adult somatization through the mediation of avoidance and anxiety levels of romantic attachment in a female group. Participants were 346 female students (mean age = 23.17) who completed a self-report protocol composed by the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF), the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale-Revised (ECR-R) and the Symptom Check-List (SCL-90). A structural equation modelling has been applied in order to test the mediation of romantic attachment (ECR-R) in the relation between emotional maltreatment (CTQ-SF) and somatic symptoms (SCL-90). The total model fit resulted adequate and it proved that romantic attachment mediates the relation between emotional maltreatment and adult somatization (b = 0.15, SE = 0.05, z = 2.76, p = 0.006, 95% CI [0.04, 0.25]). Our results stress the importance to consider the relational level within intervention programs for female victims of adverse childhood experiences. Addressing the treatment of these individuals towards the adult relational functioning might prevent negative effects of maltreatment and thus reduce public health costs.