Abstract
Intimate partner relationship quality during the child-bearing years has implications for maternal health. The purpose of this study was to test whether partner satisfaction, partner conflict, and their interaction predicted maternal cardio-metabolic health at 12-months postpartum. Women were recruited in 5 U.S. sites. Partner conflict and satisfaction were measured at 6-months postpartum, and cardio-metabolic indicators (blood pressure, waist–hip ratio, glycosylated hemoglobin, total cholesterol:HDL ratio) were assessed at 6- and 12-months. Cardio-metabolic indices were scored continuously (CM risk) and using clinical risk cutoffs (CM scores). A significant conflict-by-satisfaction interaction emerged for the CM risk, b(SE) = .043 (.016), p = .006, and CM scores, b(SE)= .089 (.028), p = .002, such that when partner satisfaction was low, low partner conflict was associated with poorer postpartum cardio-metabolic health. This is the first study to examine close relationships and cardio-metabolic health during the child-bearing years, an issue warranting further attention.
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Abbreviations
- BMI:
-
Body mass index
- CCHN:
-
Community Child and Health Network
- DAS:
-
Dyadic Adjustment Scale
- DBP:
-
Diastolic blood pressure
- DBS:
-
Dried blood spot
- FPL:
-
Federal poverty line
- HDL:
-
High density lipoprotein
- HPA:
-
Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal
- MAP:
-
Mean arterial pressure
- SBP:
-
Systolic blood pressure
- WHR:
-
Waist–hip ratio
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Funding
This study was conducted by Community Child Health Network (CCHN) through cooperative agreements with the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [UHD44207, U HD44219, U HD44226, U HD44245, U HD44253, U HD54791, U HD54019, U HD44226-05S1, U HD44245-06S1, R03 HD59584] and the National Institute for Nursing Research [U NR008929]. K. Ross is supported through the National Institute for Health [R01 HD073491] and Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [R01 HD072021-01A1].
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Kharah M. Ross, Christine Guardino, Calvin J. Hobel, and Christine Dunkel Schetter declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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All procedures were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committees and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Ross, K.M., Guardino, C., Hobel, C.J. et al. Partner relationship satisfaction, partner conflict, and maternal cardio-metabolic health in the year following the birth of a child. J Behav Med 41, 722–732 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-018-9947-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-018-9947-2