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 Based on nearly 3,000 children followed since they were toddlers,
the researchers also found that kids with depressed mothers in
“middle childhood” were likely to start risky health behaviors
earlier in their adolescence than other kids.
"Although there is a fairly good body of evidence suggesting that
maternal depression is associated with depression in the child,
there is a lot less about how maternal depression might influence
adolescent behavior,” Ian Colman, the study’s senior author, told
Reuters Health in an email.
“Given how prevalent maternal depression is, and that risky
adolescent behaviors are associated with poor long-term outcomes in
adulthood, we thought better evidence in this area could be really
useful” said Colman, a researcher at the University of Ottowa in
Ontario.
Previous studies have suggested a link between a mother’s depression
during pregnancy or right after a baby is born to the teenager’s
mental health (see Reuters Health article of October 10, 2013 here:
http://reut.rs/1zWKAiz).
But not much is known about maternal depression and later adolescent
behaviors, Colman’s team writes in the journal Pediatrics.
The study team analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Survey
of Children and Youth, a large Canadian population study that began
when the kids were ages two to five in 1994 and ended in 2009 when
they were teenagers.
Every two years, the participating mothers answered questions about
their own physical and mental health, and about the health of their
kids and spouses or partners, their available social support and
family functioning.
Once the children reached the age of 10 or 11, they filled out their
own questionnaires.
When they reached adolescence, the young participants were asked
about their engagement in risky behaviors such as drug and alcohol
use, carrying a weapon or running away from home. A total of 2,910
teens completed the study,
The researchers found that teens who had been exposed to maternal
depressive symptoms during middle childhood were more likely to use
alcohol, cigarettes or marijuana, and to engage in violent and
nonviolent delinquent behavior.
In addition, they were more likely to engage in these behaviors
earlier than teens whose mothers had low or no symptoms of
depression.
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The study team also found that teens exposed to recurrent maternal
depression throughout their childhood engaged in more nonviolent
risky behaviors compared to those whose mothers had low or no
depression.
In contrast, kids whose mothers’ depression symptoms started when
the child was already in the early teens did not engage in more
risky behaviors than kids without any maternal depression exposure.
The results don't prove that the mothers' symptoms when their
children were young caused the children's behavior in adolescence.
But, the authors write, middle childhood is a period of increasing
cognitive, social and emotional development. Kids in this age group
begin school, refine their language skills and increasingly engage
in social peer relationships. Being exposed to a mother’s depressive
symptoms and negative parenting behaviors may harm the child’s own
development during this sensitive time and lead to “lasting
deficits,” they speculate.
Colman said that asking for help can be hard, but even just talking
about how she is feeling can sometimes be a really helpful start on
the road to recovery for a mother experiencing depression.
Colman thinks it’s great that there seems to be a growing focus on
maternal health, but added, “let’s not forget that what is good for
mothers is often good for their kids as well.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1rd5zfb Pediatrics, online December 22, 2014.
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