Parental Resilience Resources and Gestational Length: A Test of Prenatal Maternal Inflammatory Mediation

Adverse birth outcomes such as preterm birth and low birthweight can engender long-term developmental consequences for the health and well-being of offspring. Prior research demonstrates that chronic inflammation during pregnancy in women increases the risk of both birth and developmental adversities. However, little research has investigated whether protective factors like psychological resilience resources predict lower maternal inflammation in pregnancy and decrease the risk of preterm birth and infant low birth weight.

In this study, we tested whether resilience resources measured in mothers and fathers predicted longer gestational length and higher birthweight through lower levels of systemic inflammation operationalized as C-reactive protein (CRP) in a sample of 217 parent dyads from the Community Child Health Network (CCHN) study. We also explored whether these effects varied by parental marital status. Resilience resources were conceptualized as a latent factor composed of social support, self-esteem, mastery, and optimism. We then tested a 2-stage latent moderated-mediation model followed by a multigroup structural equation model.

We found that paternal resilience resources predicted lower prenatal maternal CRP ( β =-0.39 , p =.009, SE=0.05), which in turn predicted a longer gestational length in married ( β =-0.41, p =.042, SE=0.53) but not unmarried parents, whether cohabiting or not. Maternal resilience resources did not directly predict CRP or birth outcomes.

This research suggests that a combination of 4 resilience resources among fathers in married couples may be protective for maternal health.