Abstract
Early maternal relational traumas and psychopathological risk can have an impact on mother-infant interactions. Research has suggested the study of fathers and of their psychological profiles as protection or risk factors. The aim of the paper is to assess the quality of parental interactions during feeding in families with mothers with early traumatic experiences. One hundred thirty-six (N = 136) families were recruited in gynecological clinics: Group A included families with mothers who experienced early sexual/physical abuse; Group B was composed of families with mothers who experienced early emotional abuse or neglect; and Group C comprised healthy controls. The subjects participated in a 10-month longitudinal protocol [at the fourth month of pregnancy (T0), 3 months after child birth (T1), and 6 months after child birth (T2)] that included an observation of mother-infant and father-infant interactions during feeding (Scala di Valutazione dell’Interazione Alimentare [SVIA]) and a self-reporting 90-item Symptom Checklist-Revised (SCL-90-R). Maternal higher rates of depression and early traumatic experiences of neglect and emotional abuse predicted more maladaptive scores on the affective state of the dyad SVIA subscale. Paternal anxiety predicted more severe levels of food refusal in the child during feeding.
Highlights
Our hypothesis was that mothers who had early relational traumatic experiences (RTEs) without being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other psychiatric disorders could be at risk for the onset of psychopathological symptoms after their children’s births and could encounter difficulties in their interactions with their children
This is the first study of early maternal relational trauma that has assessed the quality of parental interactions with their children while using an observational method to focus on a non-clinical population
Our results showed that mothers with early traumatic experiences (Groups A and B) had significantly more maladaptive interactions during the feeding of their children, both at 3 months and 6 months of age, when compared to mothers who had not experienced traumas (Group C)
Summary
The research described here was approved by the Ethical Committee of the Psychology Faculty at Sapienza, University of Rome, before the start of the study and in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consent was obtained from each of the study participants. The general aim of the study was to longitudinally assess the quality of mother-infant and father-infant interactions during a daily routine, such as feeding interactions with children at ages 3 and 6 months, in families with mothers who have experienced early RTEs, such as physical/sexual abuse and emotional abuse/neglect, in the first 5 years of life. To this end, we subdivided our sample into three groups: families with mothers who have experienced physical/sexual abuse (Group A); families with mothers who have
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