(PS10-B46) Bidirectional Associations Between Maternal Demoralization and Children’s Emotion Regulation Are Altered by Prenatal Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke

Historically marginalized and disadvantaged groups experience high degrees of stress and bear undue public health burden. Environmental chemical exposures are more common in these groups and have been linked with mental health challenges. Parents who report higher stress also report their children have poorer emotional/behavioral functioning and children’s difficulties can contribute to parents’ stress.  We examine the moderating effects of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure and ethnoracial identity on bidirectional associations between parent stress and child functioning.

Participants from a prospective longitudinal birth cohort (N=563 non-smoking mothers and their children) had longitudinal measures of child behavior problems (Total Problems subscale from Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), 4 time points, age 5 to 11; Youth Self Report of the CBCL, age 14) and maternal demoralization (Psychiatric Epidemiology Research Instrument–Demoralization, 10 time points prenatal to age 14). Cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine, in prenatal cord blood measured environmental tobacco smoke. Latent growth curve modeling tested if 1) maternal demoralization was bidirectionally associated with children’s behavior problems, 2) trajectories predicted youth’s self-reported behavior problems at age 14, 3) trajectories differed across Black and Latina mothers, and 4) if environmental tobacco smoke exposure influenced either trajectories maternal demoralization or child behavior problems.

Prenatal maternal demoralization and change in maternal demoralization over timepredicted children’s behavior problems and youth’s age-14 self-reported behavior problems at  (all p’s< .02). Maternal report of children’s behavior problems (age 5) positively predicted youth’s age-14 self-reported behavior problems (p<.01); change in maternally reported behavior problems over time negatively predicted self-reported behavior problems (p<.01). Compared to Black mothers, Latina mothers endorsed higher prenatal maternal demoralization that decreased faster over time (p’s<.01) and more behavior problems in their children (age 5; p=0.05). More environmental tobacco smoke exposure was associated with more behavior problems over time (p=0.04).    
These findings from longitudinal data suggest that behavioral interventions addressing maternal stress and children’s behavior problems may important for Latinx families in the preschool years; whereas Black families may benefit more from these interventions later in youth’s development. In this community sample, children’s behavior problems persisted into the teenage years, a time of heightened risk for the development of psychopathology, and were heavily influenced not only by their own history of behavioral challenges but also by maternal stress. Higher prenatal environmental tobacco smoke exposure was associated with faster increases in behavior problems over time, indicating that exposure to tobacco smoke negatively influences youth behavior problems even in non-smoking mothers.