Gestational Stress and Parenting: A Review of Human and Animal Literature

The majority of research investigating the impact of stress and stress-related disorders on the parent–infant dyad has focused on how stress affects offspring development with much less work investing how stress affects the parent; from behavioral, physiological, and neurobiological perspectives. Our emphasis in this chapter is to review clinical and basic research on how gestational stressors affect parenting. We focus on gestational stress effects on parental care-giving behaviors with a discussion of neurobiological and physiological mechanisms related to these behaviors. Key studies on both maternal and paternal care are included. We also discuss the role that offspring play in the effects of gestational stress on parenting. Finally, there is a need to intervene and prevent the intergenerational effect of gestational stress; therefore, interventions that may be used to minimize the effects of gestational stress on the early parent–infant relationship are included. The transition to parenthood is a critical window for determining mental and physical health for parents in midlife and beyond, thus every effort should be made to improve the transition to parenthood for the sake of the parent and child.