Maternal and paternal depression and anxiety and offspring infant negative affectivity: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Maternal internalizing symptoms during pregnancy, specifically depression and/or anxiety, are commonly linked to negative affectivity (NA) in infant offspring. These links are commonly attributed to biological effects of the in utero environment on fetal development. However, research suggests that internalizing symptoms before and after pregnancy, as well as in fathers, may also be associated with NA in infant offspring. Such findings suggest greater complexity in transmission than can be explained by biological in utero programming alone. Further, infant NA is often treated as an homogenous construct, yet it covers a range of facets including fear, frustration, sadness, and slow recovery f..