ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Pediatric Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1580373
Maternal employment patterns after childbirth and child mental health with 4 to 6 years of age
Provisionally accepted
- 1Institute of Epidemiology and Medical Biometry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany
- 2German Center for Child and Adolescent Health (DZKJ), Ulm, Germany
- 3Pediatric Epidemiology, Department of Pediatrics, Medical Faculty, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
- 4German Center for Child and Adolescent Health (DZKJ), Leipzig, Germany
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objectives: To assess potential associations between maternal employment after childbirth with subsequent child mental health problems. Methods: We analyzed 536 families of a prospective birth cohort to estimate trajectory classes of maternal employment 0-36 months postpartum. Multivariable linear regression models were employed to examine associations between (1) trajectory classes and (2) maternal employment status at 12 months postpartum with child mental health problems at 4, 5, and 6 years of age.Results: We identified five different trajectory classes of maternal employment after childbirth. For boys, trajectory classes 2 and 3 (characterized by relatively high maternal working hours/week) were associated with more mental health problems at ages 5 and 6 compared to class 1 (relatively low or no working hours/week). No associations were found for classes 4 (part-time after 2 years) and 5 (increasing and subsequently decreasing working hours/week) among boys. For girls, class 5 was associated with less mental health problems at ages 5, and 6 compared to class 1. Analysis of maternal employment status at 12 months postpartum showed less mental health problems for part-time employment at 12 months postpartum compared to no-employment among boys.Conclusion: Mixed results were found for maternal employment after childbirth and boys’ mental health depending on the measure used. No detrimental associations were found for girls.
Keywords: Maternal Employment, Mental Health Problems, Quality of Life, SDQ, KINDL
Received: 26 Feb 2025; Accepted: 22 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wernecke, Peter, Braig, Genuneit and Rothenbacher. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Deborah Wernecke, Institute of Epidemiology and Medical Biometry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.