Maternal Child Maltreatment and Intimate Partner Violence: Effects on Perceptions of Infant Temperament and the Mediating Role of Emotion Regulation and Responsiveness

Maternal adverse experiences, such as maltreatment in childhood and later intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy, can disrupt the mother-child relationship and influence maternal perceptions of infant temperament. The present study explored how these adversities influence mothers’ views of their infants’ temperaments and examined the role of maternal emotion regulation and responsiveness to their infants as mediators of these relationships. Using data from a longitudinal study of highly stressed, vulnerable women, 355 mothers retrospectively reported on their own childhood maltreatment, as well as their experiences of IPV and emotion regulation during pregnancy. Maternal responsiveness was coded using mother-infant interactions at one month postpartum, and maternal perception of infant temperament was reported at six months postpartum. Results indicated that maternal emotion dysregulation significantly mediated the relationship between childhood maltreatment and perceptions of difficult infant temperament. When examining subtypes of maltreatment, emotional abuse influenced perceptions of infant difficult temperament through emotion dysregulation, and emotional neglect was directly related to perceptions of infant difficult temperament. Physical and sexual abuse were not related to perceptions of infant temperament. Furthermore, pregnancy IPV was associated with perceptions of difficult temperament through maternal emotion regulation. Interestingly, maternal responsiveness was not a significant mediator in any pathway. These findings highlight the critical role of maternal emotion regulation in shaping perceptions of infant temperament for mothers who experienced child maltreatment and pregnancy IPV, suggesting that targeted interventions focused on improving maternal emotion regulation may improve maternal perceptions of their infant.