| Description |
Perceived social support and overall relationship quality between a pregnant woman and her partner could affect an infant's future emotional distress. There are many ways that a couple could cope behaviorally with conflicts that result from poor relationship quality. Indeed, a pregnant woman's coping behaviors in response to stress have been shown to associate with her newborn infant's stress signs. It is also possible that a pregnant woman's coping behaviors could have a mediating effect between partner relationship quality and infant stress signs. This study explored whether the effects of partner relationships on newborn stress are mediated by a pregnant mother's behaviors. Participants included 162 pregnant women and their infants. Measures consisted of questionnaires to assess women's self-reports of relationship quality, coping behaviors, and depressive symptoms during the prenatal period. Behavioral data include coded observations of the pregnant women's flight, prosocial, and displacement behaviors during the speech portion of the Trier Social Stress Test, and measures of infant stress coded from the stress/abstinence scale of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Network Neurobehavioral Scale (NNNS). The hypotheses of this study were that (1) a negative partner relationship in pregnancy will associate with more infant stress signs and that (2) the flight, prosocial, and displacement behaviors of the mother will each (separately) mediate this relation. It was found that partner relationship quality was not significantly associated with infant stress signs. Furthermore, flight, prosocial, and displacement behaviors did not mediate the relation between partner relationship quality and infant iii stress. Because of previously known associations between coping behaviors and depression, exploratory analyses were run with these two variables and partner relationship quality. The analyses were Zero-order Pearson's r correlations, linear regressions, and an indirect effect model. It was found that partner relationship quality, dysfunctional coping, and depression were all associated. Dysfunctional coping also mediated the relation between partner relationship quality and symptoms of depression. Further research is needed to examine the association between partner relationship quality, a mother's behavior, and infant stress. The findings on the mediating role of dysfunctional coping between relationship quality and depression highlight the importance of coping behaviors and add to previous research on the topic. |
