Offspring of parents with bipolar disorder (BD) are at high risk for psychiatric disorders, but mechanisms conferring risk are not well understood. Identifying and understanding factors that increase offspring vulnerability may inform intervention efforts. Three studies examined the following risk factors: (1) obstetric complications (OCs); (2) family functioning; and (3) clinical characteristi...

BACKGROUND Very few studies have investigated psychopathology in children of mothers with eating disorders (ED). We aimed to determine the effect of maternal ED on childhood psychopathology in a large population-based cohort and investigate relevant risk pathways using structural equation modeling (SEM). METHODS Data on emotional and behavioral problems at 3½ years were obtained prospectively...

Eighty-two mother-infant dyads, comprising women with psychiatric disorder and individually matched controls, were followed up over the children's 1st year of life. The mothers with mental illness consisted of two subgroups: first, 25 severely mentally ill mothers who had been admitted to a psychiatric unit with their infants; and second, 16 mothers from a community sample meeting research diag...

BACKGROUND Prenatal stress and other prenatal risk factors (e.g. intimate partner violence) have a negative impact on mother's health, fetal development as well as enduring adverse effects on the neuro-cognitive, behavioral and physical health of the child. Mothers of low socio-economic status and especially those living in crime-ridden areas are even more exposed to a host of risk factors. Soc...

The present study examined mediators and moderators of the relation between parental ADHD symptomatology and the development of child attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms across the preschool years. Participants included 258 (138 boys) 3-year-old children (M = 44.13 months, SD = 3.39) with and without behavior problems and their parent...

This study examined media viewing by mothers with violence-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related media exposure of their preschool-age children. Mothers (N = 67) recruited from community pediatric clinics participated in a protocol involving a media-preference survey. Severity of maternal PTSD and dissociation were significantly associated with child exposure to violent media...

A sizeable body of research has documented Expressed Emotion (EE) to predict clinical outcomes in various psychiatric disorders, including eating disorders. Patients' perceptions of relative's EE, however, were found to play an important role in the processing of EE. This study aimed to examine the level of perceived EE in adolescent binge-eating disorder (BED) and its impact on eating disorder...

This article examines the complex role of early stressful experiences in producing both vulnerability and resilience to later stress-related psychopathology in a variety of primate models of human development. Two types of models are reviewed: Parental Separation Models (e.g., isolate-rearing, peer-rearing, parental separations, and stress inoculation) and Maternal Behavior Models (e.g., foragi...