6.129 LOWER EARLY PARENTAL MENTALIZATION AS A RISK FACTOR FOR CHILD MENTALIZATION ABILITIES IN EARLY ADOLESCENCE IN VERY PRETERM-BORN CHILDREN: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY

Objectives: Children born very preterm (VP) are at a higher risk for emotional deregulation, which might be linked to deficits in mentalizing later in life. Adolescence is such a period of intense life changes putting teenagers at risk for the development of socio-emotional difficulties, including poor mentalization. We know that parental mentalization influences children's developmental outcome. However, it remains unknown whether parental mentalization plays a role in children's own mentalization abilities. We aimed at examining whether the poor maternal mentalization abilities of parents who have experienced perinatal stress (i.e. premature delivery) account for the mentalization deficits found in VP-born young adolescents. Methods: Thirty-six VP (gestational age range=26-33 weeks) and 22 full-term children (gestational age range=37-41 weeks) participated in an 11-year-long study. At 18 months, maternal mentalization was assessed with the reflective functioning scale on the Working Model of the Child Interview and maternal stress related to premature delivery was measured with the Perinatal Posttraumatic Stress Questionnaire. At 11 years, children's mentalization was assessedwith the reflective functioning scale of the Friends and Family Interview. Results: We found group differences (VP/full-term) in maternal mentalization at 18 months (t(53)=2.43, p