1 - (SYM 133) Brooding in Pregnancy Predicts Higher Maternal Internalizing Symptoms in Pregnancy and Postpartum: Implications for Treatment and Prevention of Intergenerational Risk Transmission

Brooding is a form of rumination characterized by worry about one’s shortcomings and passive assessments of one’s situation relative to an unattained standard. This ruminative style is associated with greater severity and longer duration of internalizing symptoms. Relative to other populations, there has been less exploration of rumination in pregnancy and during the transition to postpartum parenting. Pregnancy is an important time to understand mental health, given the stress associated with carrying and then caring for a new child. It is also an opportune time for mental health referrals, due to increased contact with medical providers. In the present study, we investigated associations between pregnant participant’s brooding on the Rumination Response Scale (RRS) and their internalizing scores on the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment, concurrently and at 7- and 18-months postpartum. We hypothesized that higher prenatal brooding scores would be associated with higher concurrent internalizing scores, and higher brooding would associate with internalizing trajectories pre- to postpartum. To test these hypotheses, we constructed multilevel models with internalizing scores as the outcome, time as a predictor of change, centered prenatal brooding scores, and the interaction between time and brooding to explore how associations between brooding and internalizing scores changes over time. Findings revealed that higher prenatal brooding scores were associated with higher prenatal internalizing scores (B = 2.16, p < .001). Furthermore, even though internalizing symptoms decrease from pregnancy to postpartum, prenatal brooding shows a continued association with postnatal internalizing scores 7 and 18 months after birth (p < .01), and participants at or above mean levels of prenatal brooding showing the highest postpartum internalizing scores. Planned analyses from data already collected will further explore effects of prenatal brooding on mother-child observed interactions. Results will be discussed in the context of novel prenatal interventions for rumination, such as adaptations of rumination-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (RF-CBT), which have potential to benefit perinatal populations and reduce intergenerational transmission of internalizing symptoms.