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Maternal Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), Resilience, Paternal Social Health, Infant Developmental Milestone

Lily Zheng1, Hsiao-Wei Banks2, Krystal Hunter3

  • 1Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ USA.

Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma
|May 25, 2026
PubMed

Insights

Parental drug use, particularly paternal marijuana use, impacts infant developmental milestones. Maternal resilience is crucial, as lower resilience correlates with delayed infant development, while maternal ACEs showed no direct association.

Area of Science:

  • Perinatal Health
  • Child Development
  • Maternal Mental Health

Background:

  • Maternal risk factors like adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and parental drug use affect offspring health.
  • Maternal resilience can mitigate these risks, but their combined impact on infant developmental milestones (DM) is understudied.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the association between maternal ACEs, maternal resiliency, and parental social history on infant DM achievement in the first year of life.

Main Methods:

  • 107 mother-infant pairs were studied between 2020-2022.
  • Maternal ACEs, resilience (7C's Tool), and paternal drug history were assessed.
  • Infant DM (motor, social, language, cognitive) were tracked at 2, 4, 6, and 12 months.

Main Results:

  • Paternal marijuana use was linked to decreased odds of DM achievement at 2 months.
  • Lower maternal resilience (higher 7C's Tool score) correlated with lower odds of meeting all DM by 4 months.
  • Paternal cannabis use was associated with increased odds of meeting all DM by 4 months; no significant association found between maternal ACEs and infant DM.

Conclusions:

  • Paternal marijuana use and maternal resilience significantly influence infant developmental milestones.
  • While maternal ACEs did not show a direct link, parental substance use and maternal resilience are key factors in early child development.

Keywords:
Infant developmentMaternal and paternal healthResilience

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