When mothers experience symptoms of depression after
the birth of their children, they are less likely to
breast-feed, play with, read to or perform other
interactive parenting tasks with their newborns, according
to a study conducted by researchers from the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public
Health and Columbia University.
The nationwide study is the largest to examine whether
a mother's depressive symptoms impact her parenting
practices postpartum. The results appear in the March
edition of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent
Medicine.
"Maternal depressive symptoms are very common in early
infancy. We found nearly 18 percent of the mothers in our
study reported experiencing some symptoms of depression two
to four months after the birth of their children," said
Cynthia S. Minkovitz, corresponding author of the study and
a professor in the
Department of Population and Family Health Sciences at
the Bloomberg School. "These symptoms clearly have an
unfavorable impact on a mother's parenting practices,
particularly those that involve active engagement with the
child. Our results highlight the importance of screening
new mothers for depressive symptoms."
Results from the study showed that 43.8 percent of
mothers with depressive symptoms were likely to be
breast-feeding at two to four months postpartum compared to
56.9 percent of mothers who did not have depressive
symptoms. At two to four months following birth, 87.4
percent of mothers with depressive symptoms were likely to
play with their infants at least once a day compared to
91.9 percent of mothers without symptoms, and 22.4 percent
of mothers with depressive symptoms were likely to show
their children books compared to 28.2 percent without.
The presence of depressive symptoms did not appear to
impact a mother's adherence to safety practices, such as
lowering the temperature of the home water heater and
placing the infant in the correct sleeping position. In
these instances, the researchers did not find any
significant differences between mothers with and without
depressive symptoms after factors such as the mother's age,
income and level of education were considered. Overall,
adherence to safety practices was high among all study
participants.
The results of the study are based on an analysis of
4,874 mothers from 15 pediatric care sites nationwide
conducted by Minkovitz; lead author Kathryn Taafe McLearn,
formerly with the Mailman School of Public Health at
Columbia; and colleagues. The participants were drawn from
the National Evaluation of Healthy Steps for Young Children
and were surveyed about their backgrounds when they entered
the study and then about their depressive symptoms and
parenting practices two to four months following the births
of their children.
The study was written by McLearn, Minkovitz, Donna M.
Strobino, Elisabeth Marks and William Hou. Funding was
provided by the Commonwealth Fund.
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