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

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.

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).

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.

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.