This book examines the complex impact of prenatal stress and the mechanism of its transmission on children’s development and well-being, including prenatal programming, epigenetics, infl ammatory processes, and the brain-gut microbiome. It analyzes current findings on prenatal stressors affecting pregnancy, including preconception stress, prenatal maternal depression, anxiety, and pregnancy-specific anxieties. Chapters explore how prenatal stress affects cognitive, affective, behavioral, and neurobiological development in children while pinpointing core processes of adaptation, resilience, and interventions that may reduce negative behaviors and promote optimal outcomes in children. Th is complex perspective on mechanisms by which early environmental influences interact with prenatal programming of susceptibility aims to inform clinical strategies and future research targeting prenatal stress and its cyclical impact on subsequent generations. Key areas of coverage include: The developmental effects of prenatal maternal stress on children. Epigenetic effects of prenatal stress. Intergenerational transmission of parental early life stress. The microbiome-gut-brain axis and the effects of prenatal stress on early neurodevelopment. The effect of prenatal stress on parenting. Gestational stress and resilience. Prenatal stress and children’s sleeping behavior. Prenatal, perinatal, and population-based interventions to prevent psychopathology. Prenatal Stress and Child Development is an essential resource for researchers, professors and graduate students as well as clinicians, therapists, and related professionals in infancy and early childhood development, maternal and child health, developmental psychology, pediatrics, social work, child and adolescent psychiatry, developmental neuroscience, and related behavioral and social sciences and medical disciplines. Excerpt from the foreword: “I would make the plea that in addition to anyone with an interest in child development, this book should be essential reading for researchers pursuing “pre-clinical, basic science models of neurodevelopment and brain health”.... This book provides what in my mind is the most advanced compilation of existing knowledge and state-of-the-art science in the field of prenatal psychiatry/psychology (and perhaps in the entire field of prenatal medicine). This volume can brilliantly serve to focus future directions in our understanding of the perinatal determinants of brain health.” Michael J Meaney James McGill Professor of Medicine Translational Neuroscience Programme Adjunct Professor of Paediatrics

Children are the foundation of the United States, and supporting them is a key component of building a successful future. However, millions of children face health inequities that compromise their development, well-being, and long-term outcomes, despite substantial scientific evidence about how those adversities contribute to poor health. Advancements in neurobiological and socio-behavioral science show that critical biological systems develop in the prenatal through early childhood periods, and neurobiological development is extremely responsive to environmental influences during these stages. Consequently, social, economic, cultural, and environmental factors significantly affect a child's health ecosystem and ability to thrive throughout adulthood. Vibrant and Healthy Kids: Aligning Science, Practice, and Policy to Advance Health Equity builds upon and updates research from Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity (2017) and From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development (2000). This report provides a brief overview of stressors that affect childhood development and health, a framework for applying current brain and development science to the real world, a roadmap for implementing tailored interventions, and recommendations about improving systems to better align with our understanding of the significant impact of health equity.

This book examines the complex impact of parenting stress and the effects of its transmission on young children’s development and well-being (e.g., emotion self-regulation; executive functioning; maltreatment; future parenting practices). It analyzes current findings on acute and chronic psychological and socioeconomic stressors affecting parents, including those associated with poverty and cultural disparities, pregnancy and motherhood, and caring for children with developmental disabilities. Contributors explore how parental stress affects cognitive, affective, behavioral, and neurological development in children while pinpointing core adaptation, resilience, and coping skills parents need to reduce abusive and other negative behaviors and promote optimal outcomes in their children. These nuanced bidirectional perspectives on parent/child dynamics aim to inform clinical strategies and future research targeting parental stress and its cyclical impact on subsequent generations. Included in the coverage: Parental stress and child temperament. How social structure and culture shape parental strain and the well-being of parents and children. The stress of parenting children with developmental disabilities. Consequences and mechanisms of child maltreatment and the implications for parenting. How being mothered affects the development of mothering. Prenatal maternal stress and psychobiological development during childhood. Parenting Stress and Early Child Development is an essential resource for researchers, clinicians and related professionals, and graduate students in infancy and early childhood development, developmental psychology, pediatrics, family studies, and developmental neuroscience.

This book brings together experts in developmental and clinical psychology and behavorial neuroscientists concerned with the course of developmental in the face of pre and perinatal adversity. For graduate-level researchers and academics

There is a consensus in the literature on the relevance of the first 1,000 days since conception in the development of a child's cognitive and non-cognitive skills. However, little is known of the determinants of these skills at that age, as previous literature has focused on the effect of in utero and early childhood shocks on outcomes at birth or at age 7 and beyond. In this paper, we analyze the impact of prenatal stress on cognitive and non-cognitive development of the child by age 2. By exploiting a longitudinal dataset of children and their parents, we find that children who were exposed in-utero to maternal stress do not have different birth-weight relative to those who were not exposed, yet by age 2, exposed children had a lower level of development, cognition skills, and more attention problems relative to children not exposed to in utero stress.We also find that the negative impacts are observed if in-utero stress occurs during the first trimester of pregnancy. The negative impact on cognitive skills and development is concentrated on lower-income children and attention problems occur among high-income children, and boys suffer lower development and worse attention problems, while girls' cognition is negatively affected by in-utero stress.

All parents experience stress as they attempt to meet the challenges of caring for their children. This comprehensive book examines the causes and consequences of parenting distress, drawing on a wide array of findings in current empirical research. Kirby Deater-Deckard explores normal and pathological parenting stress, the influences of parents on their children as well as children on their parents, and the effects of biological and environmental factors. Beginning with an overview of theories of stress and coping, Deater-Deckard goes on to describe how parenting stress is linked with problems in adult and child health (emotional problems, developmental disorders, illness); parental behaviors (warmth, harsh discipline); and factors outside the family (marital quality, work roles, cultural influences). The book concludes with a useful review of coping strategies and interventions that have been demonstrated to alleviate parenting stress.