Women exposed to childhood maltreatment: Impact on parenting, emotional well-being, and HPA functioning

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a review of the extant literature concerning the impact that exposure to childhood maltreatment has on women's emotional well being, HPA functioning, and capacity to parent. The chapter is divided among five major sections; the first three review studies that have reported on the impact of exposure to childhood maltreatment on later parenting (Section 1), emotional well-being (Section 2), and HPA functioning (Section 3). Section 4 describes some of the challenges for conducting research in the area of maltreatment, including definitional, methodological and conceptual issues. Section 5 concludes the chapter with implications and suggestions for future investigation in the area of maltreatment.