Maternal Stress and Early Neurodevelopment: Exploring the Protective Role of Maternal Growth Mindset.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to test associations between maternal stress, maternal mindset, and infant neurodevelopment at 12 months of age. Specifically, we sought to examine the extent to which maternal growth mindsets may serve to attenuate the negative associations between maternal stress and infants' neurodevelopment. The current exploratory study leverages data from a longitudinal cohort study following mother-infant dyads. Maternal-perceived stress, maternal mindset, and infant electroencephalography (EEG) recordings were collected when infants were 12 months of age. The final analytic sample included 33 dyads. Results revealed no statistically significant main effects of maternal stress or maternal mindset for any of the infant EEG frequency band outcomes. After including interactions between maternal stress and mindset, statistically significant positive interactions were detected for all EEG frequency bands. Simple slope tests revealed significant negative associations between maternal stress and each of the 6 EEG frequency bands for mothers with more fixed-oriented mindsets. Associations between maternal stress and infant EEG outcomes for mothers with more growth-oriented mindsets did not differ from 0. These findings suggest that infants raised by mothers with growth mindsets may be protected against the neurodevelopmental consequences of higher maternal stress.