Maternal mind-mindedness as a linking mechanism between childbirth-related posttraumatic stress symptoms and parenting stress.

The researchers of this study have two aims. The first aim is to verify whether posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms, evaluated at 87 hours and at 3 months postpartum, are associated with maternal mind-mindedness (MM) and parenting stress, measured at 17 months postpartum. The second aim is to investigate, at 17 months, the predictive effects of PTS symptoms on the dimensions of parenting stress and to explore whether MM mediates these associations. Forty-one mother-infant dyads participated in the study. The results show that at 17 months, hyper-arousal symptoms predicted both MM and parenting stress. MM was a linking mechanism between maternal PTS symptoms and parenting stress.