Abstract
Background
Providing responsive caregiving might benefit children’s cognitive and emotional development, but the role of infancy responsive caregiving trajectory is unclear. This birth cohort study aimed to examine the effect of infancy responsive caregiving trajectory on children’s emotional and behavioral problems (EBPs) at 2 and 3–5 years old.
Methods
A total of 2321 mother-child dyads from Shanghai Maternal-Child Pairs Cohort (Shanghai MCPC) were included in this study. Responsive caregiving was assessed using questionnaires at 2-, 6-, and 12-month old. The Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was used to assess children’s EBPs. Group-based trajectory model (GBTM) was used to identify responsive caregiving trajectory. Ordered logistic regression was fitted to analyse the association of responsive caregiving trajectories and children’s EBPs.
Results
The study participants were categorized into four trajectory groups: Increasing group (n = 26, 1.12%), Fluctuating group (n = 366, 15.77%), Decline group (n = 125, 5.39%), And normal group (n = 1804, 77.73%). Compared to children in normal group, children in decline group had significantly increased risk of emotional symptoms, conduct problems, peer problems and prosocial behavior problems at 2 years old (aOR = 3.49, 2.70, 3.67 and 1.96), also conduct problems and hyperactivity at 3–5 years old (aOR = 1.96, 1.85). Children in fluctuating group had increased risk of hyperactivity and prosocial behavior problems at 2 years old (aOR = 1.81, 1.63), and prosocial behavior problems at 3–5 years old (aOR = 1.41). While, children increasing group did not show any increased risks of EBPs at 2 and 3–5 years old.
Conclusions
Consistently decreasing, low-level fluctuations in responsive caregiving during infancy could increase the risks of children’s EBPs. Maintaining consistent and stable level of responsive caregiving during infancy had beneficial effects on children’s emotional development.