The Role of Maternal Mental Health in Infant Temperament and Early Screen Exposure Associations

Abstract

The use of tablets, television, and other screens as tools for learning or play in an infant's environment has become increasingly common, despite the American Academy of Pediatrics recommending the complete avoidance of screen time for children under 2 years of age. Temperament, defined as an infant's disposition shaped by biology, is associated with infant media exposure. Maternal mental health may play a role in mediating this association. By sampling data from the nation-wide Play and Learning Across a Year (PLAY) project, we look at infants' exposure to media at 12-, 18-, and 24-months of age (n=10), as well as maternal anxiety and depression symptoms and infant temperament measures, to explore the possibility of associations among media exposure, maternal mental health, and infant temperament. Data were collected from parents via questionnaires during an in-home visit. Due to the low-powered nature of this pilot sample, and ongoing data collection, we conducted exploratory and descriptive analyses only. We did not formally test for mediation effects. The relationship patterns within our pilot sample among infant negative affectivity, hours per day infants are exposed to television, and maternal depression and anxiety appear to be consistent with prior findings. The data collection process for this project is ongoing, thus future directions include the progression of data collection, facilitated through the nationwide PLAY project, to investigate the potential mediation effect of maternal mental health on infant temperament and media exposure associations.