| It is well established that perinatal maternal depression, anxiety, and stress are associated with a number of differences in infant outcomes. However, no known study had investigated the effects of perinatal obsessive-compulsive symptomatology on infant outcomes. Due to the widespread chronicity and potentially different underlying neurological substrates of obsessive-compulsive disorder as compared to other disorders, this represents an understudied area of research. Therefore, we investigated the effects of prenatal and postnatal obsessive-compulsive symptomatology on infant behavioral reactivity, beyond the effects of postnatal depressive symptomatology, at 6 months of age. It was expected that socioeconomic status would moderate this relationship. We recruited one hundred twenty-five pregnant women from southeastern Idaho and interviewed them at approximately 34 weeks gestation and again at 6 months postnatally. They were administered questionnaires at both time points measuring levels of obsessive compulsive symptoms and depressive symptoms, and infant behavioral reactivity was gathered during the 6-month follow-up session through both behavioral observation coding and self-report modalities. Greater severity of depressive symptomatology was related to greater of infant reactivity at 6 months as assessed via self-report, but not when assessed through behavioral observation. Greater levels of maternal obsessive-compulsive symptomatology and socioeconomic status were not found to be related to infant reactivity via either self-report or behavioral observation. Practical implications and future areas of research are discussed.
Key Words: perinatal, obsessive-compulsive, depressive symptom, infant behavior |