”Emotions in pregnancy and child
development ”
• Raija-Leena Punamäki,
• University of Tampere, Finland
• Islamic University Gaza IUG
29.11.2014
Principles of early child
development
• Strong correlation between human interaction
& sensory, psychological and physiological
development
• Integration of sensories: eye, movement
• Emotional attunement & arousal
• Re-establish the circadian rythm
• Attachment problems: either too little or too
much emotional self-regulation: ’inhibited vs
disinhibited’
Biological & Behavioral
organization in infancy
Cognitive
•Attention
•Recognition
•Specific sensory
complexity
Biological
•Brain development
(dendrites, synapses)
•Temperamental tempo
•Experience-dependent
integration
Social-emotional
•Emotion recognition, regulation,
expression
•Rhythm and communication
Representations, mental models
•Security & insecurity
•Predictable & arbitrary events
•Control & helplessness
Prenatal psychological
development I
• Prenatal environment is important to emotion
development ?
• Maternal anxiety & fear transmitted to fetus
through:
• Endocrine changes -> prolonged fetal HPA -> stress
responses
• Utero-placental circulation (undernutrition)
• Fetal movements and activity increase (Field et al., 2005)
• Fetal heart rate (incrase in stress if mother anxious,
(Monk, 2003)
• Neonatal behavior (Apgar scores, vagal tone; prolonged
effect of maternal cortisl levels?)
Prenatal psychological
development II
• Stress-related hormones necessary for fetal
maturation & birth -> optimal stress ?
• Mother & fetus respond similarly to stress
from midway pregnancy -> Follow-up
maternal stress better cognitive
development (DiPietro,2002; 2004)
• Specific risks in the 1st trimester: cascade
of effects -> changes in fetus’ own physical
regulation -> effective coping with stress
• Programming hypothesis (Baker, 1995:2003)
Evidence about trauma and
infant development
• PTSD prevalence 8-11% in pregnant women
(Loveland,2004; Mezey, 2005)
• Pregnancy in 11/9
•
•
•
•
(Yehuda, 2005, Engel, 2005)
Lower birth weight & lenght
Lower maternal cortisol levels
Longer gestational duration
Maternal PTSS -> smaller infant head circumference (>impact on cognitive develop?)
• Israeli women pregnant in June 67 war ->
more externalizing and internalizing symptoms in
early adolescence (no infancy effect) (Meyer, 1982)
• Natural disaster (Hurrricane: ice storm) in
pregnacy -> lower IQ and language perfeormat at
two-year olds
Child Birth Weight and Later Resiliency
(c2(608)=15.55,p<.02) (Punamáki, Qouta, Miller, & El Sarraj,
2011)
80
70
60
%
50
40
30
Low birth weight
20
Normal
10
Large birth weight
0
Sa
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Vu
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ab
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Tr
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Trauma-distress -balance
at
iz
ed
Severity of violence & child birth weight
(F(2,614)=3.91,p<.006) (Punamáki, Qouta, Miller, & El Sarraj, 2011)
3,7
3,6
3,5
3,4
3,3
3,2
Birth weight kg
3,1
3
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Severity of violence
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Severity of violence and % low birth
weight (c2(617)=10.63,p<.03)
%
14
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
Birth weight < 2.5kg
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Severity of violence
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Emotional development in
infancy I
• Two principles: Intensive organizational change:
Brain architecture, hemisphere laterality, neural
non-specificity
• Plasticity: experiences impact development
• Right hemisphere dominates during the first year > balance, integrity & access (Davidson et al., 2008)
• Four-monts-olds differentiate emotions according
facial & behavioral cues->causality?
• Hierarchy in emotion recognition & discrimination:
3-6 weeks better joy & anger than fear &surprise
discriminate happy & sad from surprise (Nelson &
Leppánen, 2010)
10
Emotional development in
infancy II
• Preconditions for:
• Emotion-regulation
• Theory of mind: understand and predict others’
behavior & emotions, intentions and they
causality
• Communication in trauma: Emotions are
(a) contamining, (b) mirroring, (c) causally related
• Infant learns from two parents: emotional
intensity, valence, timing and concordance
vs. discrepances
11
Research on early emoton
development
• Trauma: eye contact salient in 7-9 weeks ->
mother’s fear expression predict developmental
problems (Carlsson, 1999)
• Maternal depression -> Infants (2 mo) poorly
recognize happiness & joy in faces (Hietanen, in
press)
• Two-month-olds respond to hostile atmosphere
& family conflicts (prenatal sound discrimination)
• Children exposed to family violence recognize
well anger in faces (Pollack & Cicchetti,1999)
12
Concepts of the Immigrant Infant -study
(Kuittinen, 2013)
Cultural values, e.g.
individual – collective;
*shame –guilt feelings;
*family dynamics
*
Parental
beliefs
*
Parent-child interaction
*’Motherese’, lullaby
*Stress attunuation
*Parenting goals
*
Parenting
practices
Emotion regulation
*Sensomotor skills
*
*
Child
development
A relative in grief in Jabalia Camp 2009
Photo Mohammad Saber
Trauma & Infant development
Developmental tasks
Trauma
impact
 Sensomotor coordination
 Balance between exploring
And safe place: attachment
 Emotion expression
 Emotion recognation
 Emotion regulation
 Initial causality: Expectation,
sequences & impact
 Rely on Defences vs. Affect
regulation
Vulnerable:
 Insecure attachment
 Overprotective
parenting
 Over-under regulation
of emotions
 Heart rate up
 Startle responses
 Attunuating process
Protective:
 Developmental
plasticity
Participants & Procedure
•
•
•
•
•
Pregnant Palestinian mothers
Gaza City; Northern region, Middle Camps, South
N=510 pregnant in 2nd trimester
Approached in maternal care (Ministry of Health)
Consent to visit home and written consent of the
family
• 7 fieldworkers from the same resilience areas
• Piloting for pregnancy and infancy, N=48-80)
Research group: Samir Qouta, Safwat Diab, Saija
Kuittinen & Raija-Leena Punamaki
• Background information
• Age: m = 25 years
• Between 0-8 children, average 1,5 previous child
• Jobstatus: 82% home & child care
• Education: 55% secondary education; 27%
university
• Religiousness: 83% highly committed
• Pregnancy related issues
• Planned pregnancy 44% (n=222)
• High blood pressure 2%
• Early constrictions 2%
• Threat of miscarriage 6% (n=29)
• Subjective physical feeling: 42% bad & very bad
• Subjective emotional well-being: 28.5% -”-
Results: trauma
War experieces (N=510)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Death of family member
20%
Wounding of family member
25%
Death of a friend
11%
Witnessing killling
31%
Witnessing shelling
67%
Experiencing life danger
61%
Contact with phosporous bombs 70%
Primary results on questions:
How does war trauma associate with
• Pregnancy well-being
• Attachment to fetus
• Posttraumatic growth
War trauma and physical and emotional
pregnancy well-being (F(2,463)=3.64,p<.03 for physical)
3,4
3,2
3
2,8
Emotional well-being
2,6
Physiological wellbeing
2,4
2,2
2
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Severity of violence
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War trauma and attachment to fetus
according to posttraumatic growth (PTG)
(F(2,463)=8.42,p<.008 for main effect of PTG)
48
46
44
PGTI: high
42
PGTI:low
40
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Severity of violence
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• Thank you