Abstract
Previous studies have led to the assumption that maternal problems in reciprocal social behavior might play an important role in infantile aggression. This study investigated whether maternal problems in reciprocal social behavior were predictive of higher infantile aggression at 18 months of age, and whether maternal postpartum depressive symptoms mediated the association. Participants were 769 mother-child dyads enrolled in the Hamamatsu Birth Cohort for Mothers and Children, in Hamamatsu, Japan. Maternal problems in reciprocal social behavior were evaluated during mid-pregnancy; maternal postpartum depressive symptoms were assessed at 4 weeks after childbirth; and infantile aggression was evaluated at 18 months of age. The results of mediation analysis using structural equation modeling showed that maternal problems in reciprocal social behavior directly increased infantile aggression (estimate = 0.100, 95% CI [0.011, 0.186]), and indirectly increased infantile aggression via maternal postpartum depressive symptoms (estimate = 0.027, 95% CI [0.010, 0.054]), even after controlling for covariates. This is the first study to demonstrate two separate processes in the effects of maternal problems in reciprocal social behavior on early infantile aggression.
Highlights
A growing body of literature indicated that aggression can be observed during early infancy, in particular during the first year after birth, with a typical peak of aggression between the second and fourth years of life
Because means and standard deviations of maternal postpartum depressive symptoms (PDS) and infantile aggression showed floor effects, we considered these variables as non-normal distribution in the following analyses
The results indicated that (a) maternal PDS was positively associated with infantile aggression, and (b) maternal problems in reciprocal social behavior were positively associated with maternal PDS, even after controlling for all covariates (Table 5)
Summary
A growing body of literature indicated that aggression can be observed during early infancy, in particular during the first year after birth, with a typical peak of aggression between the second and fourth years of life. It has been theorized that maternal, rather than paternal, factors exert greater influence on the emergence of infantile behaviors including aggression (Bowlby, 1988; Tremblay, 2010) Among these maternal factors, studies have reported that postpartum depressive symptoms (PDS) might increase the risk of their progeny displaying aggression from childhood through adolescence (Barker, Copeland, Maughan, Jaffee, & Uher, 2012; Barker, Jaffee, Uher, & Maughan, 2011; Hay, Pawlby, Angold, Harold, & Sharp, 2003; O’Hara & McCabe, 2013). It is highly possible that the children of mothers with PDS at four weeks after delivery display higher levels of aggression during early infancy
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