ArticlePloS one2019
How does perinatal maternal mental health explain early social inequalities in child behavioural and emotional problems? Findings from the Wirral Child Health and Development Study.
Article in PloS one, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prenatal stress and externalizing behaviors in childhood and adolescence: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychological bulletin · 2024Pooled it
- Kids These Days! A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis of Changes in Emotional and Behavioral Problems of Population-Based Samples Over the Past Decades.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2026Review
- Persistent maternal mental health and child's behavioural, academic, and educational outcomes: evidence from national longitudinal study.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Assessing inequalities in paediatric emergency department admissions in the Northwest of England: a retrospective cohort study.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- Child mental health and income gradient from early childhood to adolescence: Evidence from the UK.SSM - population health · 2023Article
- A longitudinal comparison of emotional, behavioral and attention problems in autistic and typically developing children.Psychological medicine · 2023Article
- Toward a dimensional model of risk and protective factors influencing children's early cognitive, social, and emotional development during the COVID-19 pandemic.Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant Studies · 2023Article
- How do early-life factors explain social inequalities in adolescent mental health? Findings from the UK Millennium Cohort Study.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2019Review
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThis study aimed to assess how maternal mental health mediates the association between childhood socio-economic conditions at birth and subsequent child behavioural and emotional problem scores.
methodsAnalysis of the Wirral Child Health and Development Study (WCHADS), a prospective epidemiological longitudinal study of the early origins of child mental health (n = 664). Household income at 20-weeks gestation, a measure of socio-economic conditions (SECs) in pregnancy, was the main exposure. The outcome measure was externalising and internalising problems, as measured by the Child Behaviour Checklist at 5 years. We assessed the association of household income with child behavioural outcomes in sequential linear models adjusting for maternal mental health in the pre- and post- natal period.
resultsChildren of mothers in more disadvantaged households had higher scores for externalising behaviour with a difference of 3.6 points comparing the most affluent to the most disadvantaged families (the socio-economic (SEC) gap). In our regression model adjusting for baseline confounders, comparing children of mothers in the most disadvantaged households to the least disadvantaged, we found that most disadvantaged children scored 45 percentage points (95% CI 9, 93) higher for externalising problems, and 42% of this difference was explained in the fully adjusted model. Adjusting for prenatal maternal depressive symptomology attenuated the SEC gap in externalising problems by about a third, rendering the association non-significant, whilst adjusting for pre- and post-natal maternal mental health attenuated the SEC gap by 42%. There was no significant relationship between household income and internalising problems.
conclusionSocial disadvantage is associated with higher child externalising behaviour problems score at age 5, and about 40% of this was explained by maternal perinatal mental health. Policies supporting maternal mental health in pregnancy are important to address the early emergence of inequalities in child mental health.
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