Hair cortisol in mother-child dyads: examining the roles of maternal parenting and stress in the context of early childhood adversity

Physiological stress is thought to be one way that early adversity may impact children's health. How this occurs may be related to parental factors such as mothers' own stress and parenting behaviour. Hair cortisol offers a novel method for examining long-term physiological stress in mother-child dyads. The current study used hair cortisol to examine the role that maternal physiological stress and parenting behaviours play in explaining any effects of adversity on young children's physiological stress. This cross-sectional study comprised 603 mother-child dyads at child age 2 years, recruited during pregnancy for their experience of adversity through an Australian nurse home visiting trial. Hair cortisol data were available for 438 participating mothers (73%) and 319 (53%) children. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to define composite exposures of economic (e.g. unemployment, financial hardship) and psychosocial (e.g. poor mental health, family violence) adversity, and positive maternal parenting behaviour (e.g. warm, responsive). Structural equation modelling examined maternal mediating pathways through which adversity was associated with children's physiological stress. Results of the structural model showed that higher maternal and child physiological stress (hair cortisol) were positively associated with one another. Parenting behaviour was not associated with children's physiological stress. There was no evidence of any mediating pathways by which economic or psychosocial adversity were associated with children's physiological stress. The independent association identified between maternal and child hair cortisol suggests that young children's physiological stress may not be determined by exogenous environmental exposures; endogenous genetic factors may play a greater role.