Shana DeVlieger

Bio: Shana DeVlieger is an academic researcher from University of Pittsburgh. The author has contributed to research in topics: Personality. The author has co-authored 1 publications.

The emotional tone of child descriptions during pregnancy is associated with later parenting.

Abstract: INTRODUCTION How parents think and feel about their young children has implications for the parent-child relationship. We examined prospective associations between prenatal descriptions of the unborn child's personality and later parenting behavior. METHODS Pregnant women (N = 120; mean age = 26.16, SD = 5.71) were recruited in their third trimester for a longitudinal study. The sample is demographically diverse and predominantly economically disadvantaged. During prenatal interviews, women described their unborn child's personality, from which positive and negative emotion words were coded. Parenting behavior was coded 12 months postpartum (n = 105 for longitudinal analyses). RESULTS Use of positive and negative words was negatively correlated (r = -.34, p < .001). Greater use of positive words to describe the unborn child's personality was associated with higher observed sensitivity, warmth, and engagement during mother-infant interactions, whereas negative words were associated with higher interference and lower levels of sensitivity. Mothers who used anxiety- and/or anger-related words to describe their unborn child, relative to mothers who did not, demonstrated higher interference and lower warmth and sensitivity. CONCLUSION Descriptions of a child's personality before the child is born were associated with postnatal parenting behavior. Prenatal interventions that address negative thoughts and feelings regarding the child may be beneficial for promoting positive parenting postnatally.

Envisioning motherhood: Mental-state language in caregiving narratives across the perinatal period.

Abstract: Nancy Suchman's work highlighted the fundamental role of maternal mentalization in maternal addiction, mental health, and caregiving challenges. In this study, we aimed to examine the role of mental-state language (MSL) as a measure of mentalization in prenatal and postnatal narratives and their sentiment in a sample of 91 primarily White mothers from the western United States, followed from the second trimester of pregnancy, through the third trimester, to 4 months postpartum. Specifically, we investigated the use of affective and cognitive MSL in prenatal narratives when mothers visualized caring for their baby and postnatal narratives when mothers compared their prenatal visualization to the current caregiving reality. Results indicated moderate consistency in MSL between the second and third trimesters, but prenatal and postnatal MSL was not significantly correlated. Across all time points, higher use of MSL was related to more positive sentiment, indicating an association between mentalization and positive caregiving representations across the perinatal period. Women used more affective than cognitive MSL in prenatal imagination of caregiving, but this pattern was reversed in their postpartum reflection. Implications on assessing parental mentalization prenatally and considering the relative dominance of affective and cognitive mentalizing are discussed while considering study limitations.

Expectant mothers' not fathers' mind‐mindedness predicts infant, mother, and father conversational turns at 7 months

Abstract: Abstract Parental mind‐mindedness (MM), defined as the propensity to view one's child as an agent with thoughts, feelings, and desires, is associated with positive child outcomes (McMahon & Bernier, 2017) and can be assessed in expectant parents by using five‐minute speech samples (Magaña et al., 1986). Individual differences in MM appear stable across the transition to parenthood (Foley et al., in press), offering an exciting intervention opportunity, as expectant mothers' thoughts and feelings about their unborn infants are associated with the quality of mother‐infant interactions. To assess prenatal MM as a predictor of parent‐infant conversation at 7 months, we followed 93 low‐risk British heterosexual couples across the transition to parenthood. Mothers' and fathers' MM was measured both in the third trimester of pregnancy and at 4 months. Wearable LENA devices were used to gather detailed measures of mother‐, father‐, and infant‐initiated conversations at 7 months. Prenatal MM in both parents was associated with more frequent infant‐initiated conversations at 7 months, while prenatal maternal (not paternal) MM was also associated with more mother‐ and father‐initiated conversations. While longitudinal research with more diverse samples is needed, these findings highlight the importance of parental mentalizing in the prenatal period for early family interactions.