PMID- 33588286
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20211001
LR  - 20211001
IS  - 1934-8800 (Electronic)
IS  - 0163-6383 (Linking)
VI  - 63
DP  - 2021 May
TI  - War trauma and infant motor, cognitive, and socioemotional development: Maternal 
      mental health and dyadic interaction as explanatory processes.
PG  - 101532
LID - S0163-6383(21)00007-2 [pii]
LID - 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101532 [doi]
AB  - BACKGROUND: Taking care of infants in conditions of war is highly demanding and a 
      few studies reveal the negative impact of war trauma on maternal and infant 
      well-being. Yet, little is known regarding the influence of trauma on infant 
      development and the potential explanatory mechanisms. First, the present study 
      examines how mothers' prenatal exposure to traumatic war events is associated 
      with infant cognitive, motor, and socioemotional development. Second, it analyses 
      the mediating roles of maternal postpartum mental health problems, quality of 
      dyadic mother-infant interaction, and earlier infant development (at six months) 
      in the association between prenatal traumatic war events and infants' 
      developmental skills at 18 months. METHOD: This prospective three-wave study 
      involved 502 Palestinian pregnant females in their first trimester during the 
      2014 Gaza War and participated at delivery (T1) and when the child was six (T2;N 
      = 392) and eighteen (T3; N = 386) months of age. Mothers reported their exposure 
      to traumatic war events (human and material losses, horrors, and threat to life) 
      at T1 and T2, and researchers photo-documented the extent of destruction at T1. 
      Mothers reported infants' language, fine- and gross-motor, and socioemotional 
      skills at T2 and researchers tested infants' motor, cognitive-language and 
      socioemotional skills using the Bayley Scales of Infant development (BSID-II) at 
      T3. Mothers reported their mental health problems (symptoms of post-traumatic 
      stress disorder [PTSD], depression and somatization) at T2 and T3 as well as 
      dyadic interaction quality (the emotional availability self-report, [EA-SR] 
      brief) at T2. RESULTS: First, the structural equation model (SEM) on direct 
      effects indicated, in contrast to our hypotheses, that maternal prenatal exposure 
      to traumatic war events did not associate with infants' developmental skills at 
      T2 and predicted higher level of developmental skills at T3. Second, as 
      hypothesized, we found two negative underlying mechanisms (paths) between high 
      exposure and low levels of motor, cognitive-language, and socioemotional skills 
      at T3: (1) through increased maternal mental health problems at T2, which then 
      were associated with problems at T3, and (2) through increased maternal mental 
      health problems at T2, which then were associated with a low quality of 
      mother-infant-interaction and low level of infant developmental skills at T2. 
      CONCLUSION: Improving maternal mental health and encouraging close and positive 
      dyadic interaction can be critical for infant sensorimotor, cognitive, and 
      socioemotional development in war conditions.
CI  - Copyright (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
FAU - Qouta, Samir R
AU  - Qouta SR
AD  - Doha Institut for Graduate Studies, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, 
      Qatar.
FAU - Vanska, Mervi
AU  - Vanska M
AD  - Tampere University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, 
      Finland.
FAU - Diab, Safwat Y
AU  - Diab SY
AD  - Tampere University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, 
      Finland.
FAU - Punamaki, Raija-Leena
AU  - Punamaki RL
AD  - Tampere University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, 
      Finland. Electronic address: Raija-leena.punamaki-gitai@tuni.fi.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20210213
PL  - United States
TA  - Infant Behav Dev
JT  - Infant behavior & development
JID - 7806016
SB  - IM
MH  - Child
MH  - Child Development
MH  - Cognition
MH  - Female
MH  - Humans
MH  - Infant
MH  - *Mental Health
MH  - *Mother-Child Relations
MH  - Mothers
MH  - Pregnancy
MH  - Prospective Studies
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - Cognitive
OT  - Depression
OT  - Infant
OT  - Language and socioemotional development
OT  - Maternal PTSD
OT  - Mother-infant dyadic interaction
OT  - Motor
OT  - Somatization
OT  - War trauma
EDAT- 2021/02/16 06:00
MHDA- 2021/10/02 06:00
CRDT- 2021/02/15 20:15
PHST- 2020/03/05 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2021/02/02 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2021/02/03 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2021/02/16 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2021/10/02 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2021/02/15 20:15 [entrez]
AID - S0163-6383(21)00007-2 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101532 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Infant Behav Dev. 2021 May;63:101532. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101532. Epub 
      2021 Feb 13.