The Association of Prenatal Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence with Children's Socioemotional Competence at Five Years Postpartum

Background: Recent literature has provided an important glimpse into the adverse associations of prenatal exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) with children’s development, encompassing physical health, physiological, behavioral, and psychological outcomes. Nonetheless, the lack of empirical evidence on the social domain limits current understanding of the influence of prenatal IPV exposure. Informed by the ecobiodevelopmental theory, this study examined the association of prenatal IPV exposure with children’s socioemotional competence at 5 years, while simultaneously testing maternal and child psychosocial factors (i.e., maternal sense of mastery, maternal depressive symptoms, and children’s irritability) at 3 years as potential mediators.

Methods: Participants included 1,721 mother-child dyads (48% girls) from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCW). Socioemotional competence was assessed using the caregiver-reported Adaptive Social Behavior Inventory at child age 5 (α =.74). Prenatal IPV exposure was female caregiver-reported at childbirth in two dimensions: Past-month physical and emotional victimization (Yes=1, respectively), consistent with prior FFCW literature. At child age 3, maternal mastery, reflecting mothers’ self-knowledge of having control over their own lives and having the ability to bring about a desired outcome, was assessed by the Mastery Scale (α=.81), and maternal depressive symptoms by the Composite International Diagnostic Interview-Short Form (α=.93). Children’s irritability was assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist items (i.e., “is stubborn, sullen, or irritable”; “has temper tantrums or a hot temper”; α=0.63), recommended by prior factor analysis. Using Mplus v.8.8, multivariate path analysis using structural equation modeling was conducted to estimate the direct and indirect paths from prenatal exposure to emotional and physical IPV to children’s socioemotional competence via maternal mastery, maternal depressive symptoms, and children’s irritability, adjusting for child gender, maternal race/ethnicity, age and education, and household income. The bootstrapping method was used for statistical significance testing of indirect effects.

Results: After controlling for covariates, prenatal exposure to emotional IPV was negatively associated with maternal sense of mastery at 3-year postpartum (β=-.075, p=.002). In turn, higher levels of maternal mastery were associated with higher levels of children’s socioemotional competence at 5 years (β=.096, p<.001), yielding a significant indirect association (standardized estimate for the indirect effect=-.007 SE=.003, p =.021). Although prenatal exposure to emotional IPV was associated with maternal depressive symptoms (β=.103, p<.001) and children’s irritability (β=.073, p=.005), the pathways to socioemotional competence were not significant. No significant findings were noted with prenatal exposure to physical IPV.

Conclusions and Implications: The indirect association between emotional IPV exposure and children’s socioemotional competence, mediated by maternal sense of mastery, suggests that mothers’ self-efficacy in producing a desired outcome through their own actions can positively influence children’s socioemotional functioning. Trauma-informed perinatal interventions that empower mothers to diversify adaptive coping and parenting strategies may enhance socioemotional competence among children for whom prenatal IPV exposure poses a risk to healthy development. Interpreted within the ecobiodevelopmental theory, it is possible that certain teratogenic influence specific to physical IPV on socioemotional functioning may not emerge until children engage in interactions with expanded ecologies at later developmental stages, which warrants future examination with validated IPV measures.