UC Santa Barbara

Previous research has indicated that various forms of parental resources (money, attention) affect parental investment in children, contingent on the health risk of the child (Beaulieu & Bugental, 2008; Bugental & Schwartz, 2009; Bugental, Beaulieu, & Silbert-Geiger, 2010). In other words, high resource parents with a high risk child invest more in their child than high resource parents with a low risk child. A reverse pattern holds for low resource parents. This study examines social support as another parental resource with a downstream effect on an outcome of successful parental investment: child health. Social support has been shown to ameliorate maternal depression (Cutrona & Troutman, 1986), which in turn is predictive of premature infants’ cortisol reactivity (Bugental, Beaulieu, & Schwartz, 2008). Depressive symptoms also serve as signals for assistance (Hagen, 2002), which is particularly important for mothers of high risk children. We tested the hypothesis that social support would positively affect child health by reducing maternal depressive symptoms. Our predictions were supported. The relationship between social integration and child health was mediated by maternal depressive symptoms for high risk children, but not for low risk children providing support for the contingent parental investment model.