2026/06/22 by Dainora Veleckė, Goda Kaniušonytė, Rita Žukauskienė +1
Psychology · Medicine · #Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development #Attachment and Relationship Dynamics #Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
paper · doi:10.1037/fam0001494
= 5.01 years) in two-parent households, with children (152 boys and 147 girls; ages 9-13) attending public primary and middle schools in an eastern Lithuanian community. Nearly all participants were ethnic Lithuanian. Maternal reports of stress, perceived changes in children, and mother-child relationship quality (i.e., negativity and social support) were collected three times over the course of a year. Direct longitudinal associations emerged from maternal perceptions of changes in the child to heightened maternal stress, from maternal stress to deteriorating mother-child relationship quality, and from diminished relationship quality to escalating changes in children. Full-longitudinal mediation analyses confirmed each of the hypothesized indirect effects: (a) Time 1 perceived changes in the child → Time 2 maternal stress → Time 3 mother-child relationship quality, (b) Time 1 maternal stress → Time 2 mother-child relationship quality → Time 3 perceived changes in the child, and (c) Time 1 mother-child relationship quality → Time 2 perceived changes in the child → Time 3 maternal stress. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).