Association between parental alexithymic traits and self-reported postnatal reflective functioning in a birth cohort population. Findings from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study

•Alexithymic traits are associated with lower parental reflective functioning in both mothers and fathers.•The specific alexithymia dimension responsible for the association between alexithymic traits and parental reflective functioning is suggested to be Externally Oriented Thinking.•Since parental alexithymia has not been widely studied, more studies are needed to more firmly establish the association between alexithymia and early parental reflective functioning. Parental reflective functioning (PRF) refers to a parent's effort to see his/her child as a separate individual person from early on, and to be curious of the child's own thoughts and feelings. Parenting abilities are affected by the parent's emotion regulation and emotional availability. Alexithymia as a personality construct with emotional deficits and poor imagination could potentially affect also PRF, but studies on parental alexithymia are still scarce. The aim of the present study was to examine the association between parental alexithymic traits and PRF, which to date has not been explored. As most of the parenting research concern only mothers, an additional aim was to study also fathers. The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the 14-item Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (PRFQ-Fi) were filled by 1882 mothers and 994 fathers at six months postpartum as part of the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study. A significant negative association between TAS-20 total score and PRFQ-Fi total score among both genders was found. The main alexithymia dimension responsible for this association was Externally Oriented Thinking. The results suggest that alexithymic traits indeed are related to parental reflective functioning, but more studies are needed to explore the direction of this relation.