The Joint Contributions of Maternal Depression and Infant Negative Emotionality to Maternal Sensitivity to Infant Distress

Little is known about the role of infant emotionality and its interplay with maternal depression in the prediction of maternal sensitivity and whether these emotion-laden processes in mother and infant may be particularly relevant to sensitivity to distress. We studied 260 first time mothers and their infants, recruited into a general population prospective study during pregnancy. Infant negative emotionality was assessed at 5 weeks using the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment. At 29 weeks maternal sensitivity was observed and mothers were interviewed for DSM Major Depressive episodes since birth. Controlling for potential confounders, neither maternal depression nor infant negative emotionality independently predicted maternal sensitivity, but the interaction between them was statistically significant (p = .01). Increasing infant negative emotionality predicted decreasing maternal sensitivity to distress, only in mothers who experienced an episode of Major Depressive Disorder during the postnatal period. This effect was not seen for sensitivity to non-distress, although the test of the difference between the effects was not statistically significant (p = .07). Maternal postnatal depression may create an affective and cognitive vulnerability to the effects of frequent intense infant negative emotions. These findings have implications for our understanding of psychological processes underlying parental sensitivity, and hence for early interventions.