Social connectedness in the transition to parenthood: Implications for parent and child health and well-being

为人父母过渡中的社会联系：对父母和儿童健康和福祉的影响

• 批准号: 10742082
• 负责人: Katherine Nelson-Coffey
• 金额: $ 45.72万
• 依托单位: ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY-TEMPE CAMPUS
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-01 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10742082
• 关键词: Affect; Anxiety; Apgar Score; Area; Behavioral; Birth; Caregiver well-being; Child; Child Care; Child Development; Child Health; Child Mental Health; Couples; Distress; Emotions; Ensure; Evaluation; Expectancy; Exploratory/Developmental Grant; Family; Fathers; Foundations; Future; Gestational Age; Health; Individual; Infant; Infant Development; Intervention; Investigation; Knowledge; Lead; Life; Link; Loneliness; Longevity; Longitudinal Studies; Measures; Mediating; Mental Health; Methods; Mood Disorders; Mothers; Nature; Neurobiology; Outcome; Parent-Child Relations; Parents; Patient Self-Report; Pattern; Personal Satisfaction; Persons; Population; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders; Postpartum Period; Pregnancy; Pregnancy Outcome; Pregnant Women; Process; Reporting; Research; Risk; Risk Reduction; Site; Social Network; Social Processes; Social support; Stress; Symptoms; Temperament; Time; Weight; Well in self; Woman; adverse childhood events; biopsychosocial; caregiving outcomes; depressive symptoms; experience; fatherhood; gender difference; high reward; high risk; improved; infant outcome; infant temperament; innovation; intergenerational; men; perinatal period; physical conditioning; positive emotional state; prospective; psychosocial; satisfaction; skills; social; social contact; social relationships

Project Summary One of the most important methods of promoting children’s positive adaptive skills is improving caregiver well- being6,7. Postpartum mood disorders affect up to 40% of new parents8-10, and confer significant risk to child development8,11. Additionally, the transition to parenthood triggers changes to social life, which may lead new parents—both mothers and fathers—to feel lonely and less socially connected3, which may exacerbate declines in parents’ mental health4,5. Social connectedness—the extent to which people feel close and connected to other people—is linked with improved mental and physical health across the lifespan12-14. Further, social connectedness is only moderately correlated with other relationship processes, such as social network size, relationship satisfaction, and social support15, suggesting that it may confer unique protective benefits. However, remarkably few studies have systematically investigated changes in social connectedness during the transition to parenthood and their implications for postpartum mental health and child development. Given the unique neurobiological, psychosocial, and behavioral changes that occur during the transition to parenthood16, research on social connectedness during the perinatal period and its connection to child development is needed. We propose to fill this critical knowledge gap in this R21 investigation. Specifically, we will examine social connectedness among first-time expectant mothers and fathers and their associations with health and well-being outcomes from pregnancy to 4-months postpartum. We will incorporate comprehensive measures of social connectedness (loneliness, connectedness), distress (depressive, anxiety, and birth-related PTSD symptoms), well-being (positive and negative emotion, life satisfaction), child development (delivery outcomes, Bayley Scales, temperament), and caregiving outcomes (parental sensitivity, parental bonding, parental reflective functioning). We propose that changes in social connectedness will be associated with parents’ postpartum distress and well-being, as well as child development and caregiving outcomes independent of other social processes. Furthermore, we propose that parents’ mental health will be one psychosocial mechanism linking social connectedness to child outcomes. The findings from this research will be important as they will demonstrate for the first time the unique transgenerational impact of mothers’ and fathers’ social connectedness, transforming understanding across multiple areas of research, including research on postpartum mental health, fatherhood, child development, and close relationships. Moreover, the successful completion of this research will establish an empirical foundation for additional investigations on biopsychosocial mechanisms linking social connectedness to health and well-being during the perinatal period, which will inform new intervention approaches targeting broader social connectedness. Given the importance of parent mental health for child development, improving parents’ experiences promises to benefit the entire family.

项目摘要 提升儿童积极适应能力的最重要方法之一是改善护理人员 是6,7。产后情绪障碍影响多达40％的新父母8-10，并会议对儿童的巨大风险 开发8,11。此外，向父母的过渡触发了社会生活的变化，这可能导致新的 父母（无论是母亲和父亲还是父亲），会感到孤独，社会上的联系更少，这可能会加剧 在父母的心理健康中4,5。社会联系 - 人们与其他人的感受和联系的程度 人们 - 与整个生命周期12-14的身心健康相关。此外，社交 连接性仅与其他关系过程（例如社交网络规模）适度相关 关系满意度和社会支持15，表明它可能会涉及独特的保护益处。然而， 很少有研究系统地研究过渡期间社会联系的变化 育儿及其对产后心理健康和儿童发展的影响。给定独特 在过渡到父母期间发生的神经生物学，社会心理和行为变化16，研究 关于围产期期间的社会联系及其与儿童发展的联系。我们 在R21调查中填补这一关键知识差距的建议。特别是，我们将研究社会 初次准妈妈和父亲之间的联系及其与健康与福祉的联系 从怀孕到产后4个月的结果。我们将结合社会的全面衡量 连接性（孤独，联系），困扰（抑郁，焦虑和与出生有关的PTSD症状）， 幸福感（积极和负面情绪，生活满意度），儿童发展（分娩结果，贝利 量表，温度）和照料结果（父母的敏感性，父母纽带，父母反思性 功能）。我们建议社会联系的变化将与父母的产后有关 痛苦和福祉，以及与其他社会无关的儿童发展和照料成果 过程。此外，我们建议父母的心理健康将是一种与之联系的社会心理机制 与儿童成果的社会联系。这项研究的发现将很重要 首次证明母亲和父亲的社会联系对独特的变革影响， 改变多个研究领域的理解，包括有关产后心理健康的研究， 父亲身份，儿童发展和亲密关系。而且，这项研究成功完成 将建立关于与社会联系的生物心理社会机制的额外投资的经验基础 在围产期期间与健康和福祉的联系，这将为新的干预提供信息 针对更广泛的社会联系的方法。考虑到父母心理健康对孩子的重要性 发展，改善父母的经验有望使整个家庭受益。