Principle investigators and team: 

Prof. Dr. Yulia Golub

Emely Reyentanz

Cooperation partners: Department of Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the University Hospital Erlangen 

Duration: 01/2024 - 12/2027

Background

Infant mental health disorders include e.g. excessive crying, sleeping and feeding disorders. All of these disorders are related to self-regulation problems and are often precursors of psychiatric disorders across the lifespan. The primary caregiver plays an important role as a co-regulator in the development and maintenance of infant mental health disorders, as infants and young children are not yet able to regulate their feelings and impulses by themselves. Caregiver stress or mental illness could negatively affect their sensitivity (i.e. the ability to understand a child's signals and respond appropriately) and their ability to co-regulate leading in many cases to a dysfunctional parent-child interaction. 

Project description

The study has three main aims:

1) Improving the prediction and detection of infant mental health disorders

The study validates a Prenatal Risk Index that measures pre- and perinatal risk factors that can impair the child's psychological development. In order to test how well these risk factors can also be recorded retrospectively, we ask a cohort of pregnant women about their prenatal stress factors at two points in time: during their pregnancy and two years later. In addition, a Regulation Index is to be established that economically records infant mental health disorders. 

2) Better understanding of the connection between early stress and infant mental health disorders

By asking the pregnant cohort at the second assessment, 2 years after pregnancy, about infant mental health disorders related to self-regulation problems (Regulation Index) in addition to the Prenatal Risk Index, we aim to link prenatal risks and later infant mental health disordersand generate new knowledge about the development of infant mental health disorders.

3) Prevention and treatment of regulatory disorders

We have developed an evidence-based manual for a parent-child group intervention for infant mental health disorders related to self-regulation problems (0-5 years). This new group intervention is now to be tested for its effectiveness in a randomized controlled trial. In addition to questionnaires, interviews and behavioral observations, biomarkers will also be collected in order to gain a better understanding of the neurobiological basis of infant mental health disordersas well as the association between early stress and infant mental health disorders.

Study registration: DRKS00034127 

Funding: Manfred-Roth-Stiftung (grant 08/2023)

Project-related publications

Reyentanz, E., Gerlach, J., Kuitunen-Paul, S., & Golub, Y. (2024). Systematic review: the impact of maternal pre-and postnatal cannabis use on the behavioral and emotional regulation in early childhood. European child & adolescent psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-024-02494-8