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Background: Early life maltreatment (ELM) has a high risk of transmission across generations, known as "the cycle of abuse." ELM is also an important risk factor for developing mental disorders, and having a mental disorder increases the risk of child abuse. Both the abuse potential in mothers with ELM and in mothers with a history of mental disorders might be associated with a disturbed mother-child interaction. Objective: The current study examined differences in emotional availability between mothers with a history of ELM and previous or current mental disorders (non-resilient), mothers with ELM without mental disorders (resilient), and control mothers without ELM and without mental disorders. Methods: Thirty-three non-resilient mothers, 18 resilient mothers, and 37 control mothers and their 5- to 12-year-old children participated in a standardized mother-child interaction task. Videotaped interactions were rated by three independent, trained raters based on the Emotional Availability Scales (EA Scales) and compared between the groups. Results: The non-resilient mothers and their children showed reduced maternal sensitivity, structuring, non-intrusiveness, non-hostility, responsiveness, and involvement compared to the resilient mothers and their children and the control mothers and their children (p = 0.006, ηp2 = 0.12). No differences on any of the EA Scales were found between resilient mothers and control mothers. Conclusions: These deficits in mother-child interaction in non-resilient mothers might contribute to mechanisms that could explain the cycle of abuse. Interestingly, resilient mothers, who did not develop a mental disorder despite having experienced ELM, did not show these deficits. Thus, prevention programs promoting resilience might be a key to break the cycle of abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to examine the impact of a maternal history of abuse on mother–infant interaction (emotional availability; EA) in infancy and early toddlerhood. Over an 18-month period, women giving birth to a child in the local obstetric units were screened using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Women who reported moderate or severe sexual and/or physical abuse were included in the maltreatment group ( n = 58; MG) and compared with a non-maltreated comparison group ( n = 61; CG). EA was investigated under experimental conditions when the children were 5 and 12 months of age using the Emotional Availability Scales. While mother–child dyads in the MG showed only very discrete interactional alterations at an infant age of 5 months, their EA differed significantly from the CG at 12 months due to the lack of an increase in EA observed in the MG. Exploratory analyses showed an additional effect of emotional abuse on EA at 12 months. These data indicate that the period when child locomotion develops might represent a critical time window for mothers with a history of abuse. Our results constitute an advance in research on child abuse as they identify a possible time window of non-normative alteration in mother–child interaction. This period could be targeted by strategies to prevent intergenerational transmission of abusive experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most striking characteristics of early life maltreatment (ELM) is the risk of transmission across generations, which could be linked to differences in maternal behavior. Maternal sensitivity includes appropriate and positive affective exchanges between mother and child. Mothers with a history of ELM have been found to show a lower sensitivity representing a significant risk factor for maltreating their own children. 25 mothers with and 28 mothers without sexual and/or physical childhood maltreatment (as assessed with the Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse interview) and their children participated in a standardized mother–child interaction task. Videotaped interactions were rated by two independent trained raters based on the Emotional Availability Scales. In addition, empathic capabilities were assessed with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. High resolution structural magnetic resonance brain images of the mothers were analyzed with unbiased voxel-based morphometry and correlated with maternal sensitivity. Results indicate that mothers with ELM were less sensitive in the standardized interaction with their own child. In non-maltreated control mothers, maternal sensitivity was positively related to anterior insular grey matter volume, a region which is crucially involved in emotional empathy, while there was a positive association between maternal sensitivity and grey matter volume in parts of the cognitive empathy network such as the superior temporal sulcus and temporal pole region in mothers with ELM. These results implicate that neurostructural alterations associated with poor maternal sensitivity might be a sequelae of ELM and that mothers with ELM may try to compensate deficits in emotional empathy by recruiting brain regions involved in cognitive empathy when interacting with their child. Thus, findings suggest possible coping strategies of mother with ELM to prevent an intergenerational transmission of abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]