Maternal childhood trauma and toddlers’ behavioural and endocrine reactions to a crying baby doll

Abstract

BackgroundChildhood trauma can have long-term consequences for survivors, but also for survivors’ children. Children of childhood trauma survivors are more likely to develop aggressive and antisocial behaviour problems, indicating that parents’ childhood trauma may affect children’s social development. Less is known, however, about how maternal childhood trauma may affect positive aspects of children’s social behaviour, like their empathic and prosocial responses to witnessing others’ distress. Additionally, some studies suggest that maternal childhood trauma may also affect children’s physiology, particularly their endocrine responses to (dis)stress. We therefore examined the link between maternal childhood trauma experiences and children’s behavioural and endocrine responses to witnessing distress in others. MethodsWe recruited 75 mothers with 12-24 month-old toddlers. Mothers’ childhood trauma experiences was assessed and toddlers were exposed to a realistic-looking, crying baby doll, to assess their levels of distress, empathic concern for, and prosocial behaviour towards the doll. Saliva samples were taken two times prior to and one time 25minutes after exposing children to the crying doll, to assess toddlers’ baseline and reactivity cortisol concentrations in response to the crying doll. ResultsData analysis is still ongoing. The results contribute to understanding whether maternal childhood trauma can affect children’s behavioural and endocrine responses to others’ distress. ConclusionTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first study examining whether maternal childhood trauma can affect children’s responses – both behavioural and endocrine – to others’ distress. Our study may contribute to understand the intergenerational effects of childhood trauma on child social development.