Lability of prenatal stress during the COVID-19 pandemic links to negative affect in infancy

The association between prenatal stress and children's socioemotional development is well established. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a particularly stressful period, which may impact the gestational environment. However, most studies to-date have examined prenatal stress at a single time point, potentially masking the natural variation in stress that occurs over time, especially during a time as uncertain as the pandemic. This study leveraged dense ecological momentary assessments from a prenatal randomized control trial to examine patterns of prenatal stress over a 14-week period (up to four assessments/day) in a U.S. sample of 72 mothers and infants. We first examined whether varied features of stress exposure (lability, mean, and baseline stress) differed depending on whether mothers reported on their stress before or during the pandemic. We next examined which features of stress were associated with 3-month-old infants' negative affect. We did not find differences in stress patterns before and during the pandemic. However, greater stress lability, accounting for baseline and mean stress, was associated with higher infant negative affect. These findings suggest that pathways from prenatal stress exposure to infant socioemotional development are complex, and close attention to stress patterns over time will be important for explicating these pathways.     

Paternalism in Australian welfare policy

Since at least the 1990s, policies comprising welfare reform in Australia have focused on securing employment for jobless people. This article demonstrates that these policies are highly paternalistic, and argues that despite the absence of the term ‘paternalism’ from relevant government discourse, paternalism is indeed a substantial characteristic of the policies. Such policies have been substantially justified through appealing to the objective of advancing the interests of those people subject to the policies while simultaneously involving compulsion. The research is based on evidence from 1996 to 2011. Through the analysis of government documents and interviews with policy makers, the presence of a benevolent justification is identified and analysed, focusing on two subordinate justifications: reducing welfare dependency, and promoting social inclusion. Policies aimed at getting people into work are then examined, where it is found that compulsion is the primary policy instrument. It is shown that the compulsive elements in workfare, when linked to the objective of helping workfare subjects, renders the policies implicitly paternalistic.