|
 The majority of the nearly 10,000 mothers who participated in the
research did not have postpartum depression. But compared to these
women, mothers who did suffer from persistent depression were around
twice as likely to have kids with behavior problems, the study
found.
When women had severe, long-lasting depression, they were almost
five times more likely to have kids with behavior problems by age
3.5, nearly three times more apt to have teens who scored poorly on
math tests at age 16 and more than seven times more likely to have
children diagnosed with depression by age 18.
“The study found that when postnatal depression is both persistent
and severe, the risk of negative outcomes to children’s development
is raised,” said senior study author Alan Stein, a professor of
child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Oxford.
“Briefer and less severe episodes (the majority) may well not affect
child development,” Stein said by email.
For the study, researchers examined data on 9,848 mothers recruited
when they were pregnant in the early 1990s.
Women were 29 years old on average when they delivered their babies
and the mothers were assessed for symptoms of depression when their
children were 2 months, 8 months, 21 months, 33 months and 11 years
old.
Across all of the assessments, roughly 9 in 10 women didn’t have
symptoms of depression, researchers report in JAMA Psychiatry. Less
than 1 percent of the women had severe, persistent depression.
When women’s postpartum depression symptoms were still present at
two months and eight months after delivery, regardless of their
severity, depression symptoms were more likely to continue to linger
up to the 11-year assessment, the study found.
The odds of behavior problems in younger kids as well as academic
issues or depression for older teens increased along with the
severity and persistence of depression symptoms experienced by the
mothers.
[to top of second column] |
For example, women who had severe but not persistent depression were
about twice as likely to have kids with behavior problems as women
without depression symptoms, the study found.
With severe but not persistent depression, women were also more
likely to have teens with poor math grades or depression by age 18,
but these differences were too small to rule out the possibility
that they were due to chance.
The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether
or how the severity or duration of postpartum depression might
directly cause behavior or academic problems in children.
Another limitation of the study is that relatively few women had
severe, persistent depression, and it’s possible that results might
be different with a larger group of women.
Even so, the findings offer fresh evidence of the need for women to
get properly diagnosed and treated for postpartum depression,
especially because there are a range of medication and psychotherapy
options that can ease symptoms, Stein said.
Screening women at postnatal appointments would help, as would
regular follow-up screening over the months and years after any
initial episodes of postpartum depression, suggested Myrna Weissman
of the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University
in New York City.
“The take-home message is that depression should not be stigmatized;
it is a real illness with good treatments,” Weissman, author of an
accompanying editorial, said by email. “Get treatment promptly and
continuously for as long as is needed.”
SOURCES: http://bit.ly/2o6WiGQ and http://bit.ly/2Cjs60r JAMA
Psychiatry, online January 31, 2018.
[© 2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2018 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |
