Mothers' psychopathology symptoms and mindful parenting in the postpartum period: The role of parental reflective functioning.

Abstract

Postpartum psychopathology has an adverse impact on parenting behaviors and, consequently, on the mother-infant relationship. This study aimed to explore whether the relationship between maternal anxiety and depression symptomatology in the postpartum period and the ability of mothers to adopt a mindful parenting approach is indirect and can be explained by parental reflective functioning. Two hundred ninety five Portuguese mothers of infants aged up to 12 months completed self-report measures assessing anxiety/depression symptoms, mindful parenting, and parental reflective functioning. Mothers who reported clinically significant anxious and/or depressive symptomatology levels (21%) showed lower levels of mindful parenting and of certainty about the mental states as well as higher levels of prementalizing modes of mental states than mothers with normal symptomatology levels. An indirect effect of depressive symptomatology on mindful parenting through the two dimensions of parental reflective functioning and a direct effect of anxious symptomatology on mindful parenting were found. The results suggest that parental reflective functioning is an important explanatory mechanism of the relationship between depressive symptomatology and mindful parenting, as well as that anxious symptomatology is directly associated with mindful parenting. This study suggests that reducing anxious and depressive symptoms in the postpartum period can promote reflective and mindful parenting skills.