Fathers’ prenatal risk and infant mental health: The role of caregiving warmth.

Fathers can influence their children's behavioral and emotional development positively or negatively. Limited research has explored the impact of fathers' prenatal risk factors and paternal postnatal warmth on infant socioemotional development. This novel study, characterized by its use of two warmth measures, a large Nordic cohort of fathers and a longitudinal prenatal-to-postnatal design, investigates (a) the longitudinal direct effects of prenatal paternal cumulative risk on infant externalizing and internalizing behaviors at 18 months and (b) whether paternal caregiving warmth at 12 months, assessed by paternal self-reports as well as observed by dyadic interactions, moderates these associations. Data were drawn from the Little in Norway study, a large cohort of fathers (N = 864, 97.6% cohabiting, Mage = 32.18 years, 67.2% reported >3 years higher education, 4.7% belonged to an ethnic minority group) and their infants. Path analyses showed that higher paternal prenatal cumulative risk predicted increased infant externalizing (β = 0.14, p = .002) and internalizing (β = 0.09, p = .039) symptoms. Paternal self-reported warmth predicted lower externalizing symptoms, but no association was found for internalizing symptoms. Neither self-reported nor observed paternal warmth was found to moderate the relation between paternal prenatal risk and infant externalizing or internalizing symptoms, suggesting that paternal warmth may not serve as a single protective factor in buffering the potential detrimental effects of paternal cumulative risk on infant mental health outcomes. Findings underscore the importance of including fathers in developmental research, early interventions, and social policies, beginning in the prenatal period. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).