Childhood Adversity Among Adolescent Mothers and its Intergenerational Consequences

Abstract

Childhood adversity affects the majority of children in the United States, with as many as 67% of children reporting some type of psychological trauma associated with adversity by age 16. While not predictive of maladaptive behavioral and physical health outcomes, childhood trauma has certainly become a consistent precursor to conditions across the life-course that range from depression to posttraumatic stress disorder to pro-inflammatory adult disease. The perinatal period, or the time from conception through 18 months postpartum, is a unique opportunity to better address adversity and its psychological repercussions for the health and wellbeing of childbearing individuals and their offspring. However, the relationship between childhood adversity, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, and maternal postpartum functioning needs further investigation to truly understand whether adversity could play a role in the etiology of perinatal mental health conditions. This quantitative dissertation comprises three papers which examine the nature of childhood adversity among adolescent mothers, examines the relationship between childhood adversity and perinatal depression, and finally examines the relationship between childhood adversity and both early mother-infant attachment and postpartum parenting stress. Collectively, the papers find that (1) childhood adversity can be characterized into three latent classes of trauma typologies; (2) childhood adversity is associated with postpartum depression, even when accounting for prenatal depression; (3) childhood adversity is associated with postpartum maternal stress but not early mother-infant attachment. Childhood adversity appears to play a significant role in the etiology of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders among adolescent mothers and affects a subsequent generation via postpartum parenting stress. Preventing childhood adversity could be instrumental in alleviating perinatal mood and anxiety disorders for a portion of childbearing individuals.