Understanding How Motherhood and Poverty Change the Brain

Poverty-associated chronic stress is a serious threat not only to a mother’s mental health but also to maternal functioning. Recent neuroimaging studies suggest that a mother’s brain undergoes dynamic changes to support her transition to parenthood, including better emotion regulation and heightened sensitivity to infants. However, we propose that the chronic stress experienced by low-income mothers may result in damage to such adaptive neural changes, and in turn increase risk for postpartum depression and harsh parenting. Understanding of the neurobiological risk markers involved may help develop more precise interventions and treatments aimed at improving lowincome mothers’ psychological health and mother–infant relationships. T he cost of poverty is high for not only maternal mental health but also infant development and mental health risk. Low-income mothers are at far greater risk to develop postpartum depression compared to middle-income mothers (Goyal, Gay, & Lee, 2010; Segre, O’Hara, Arndt, & Stuart, 2010). Poverty is also associated with mother’s inadequate parenting, which can lead to harmful effects on the infant’s development (Gunnar, 2000). In the United States, nearly one in four families with infants now live in poverty. Thus, millions of lowincome mothers and their children are exposed to greater risks for maternal depression and harsh parenting. Recent neuroimaging studies with human mothers reveal adaptive changes in mothers’ brains supporting their transition to parenthood during the postpartum period. In this article, we review normative changes in the maternal brain, how poverty may disrupt such normative changes, and how these factors may in turn increase risk for postpartum depression and harsh parenting. Finally, we discuss how a greater understanding of the maternal brain may inform interventions and treatments for mothers in poverty.