Depression and parenting: the need for improved intervention models

Abstract

Highlights Parental depression is associated with a variety of indicators of poorer quality parenting.  The established impact on parenting includes increased stress, negative behaviors and potentially a reduction in the quality of the parent-child relationship  Child developmental outcomes follow from both depression, parenting and their interaction.  Current treatments of depression have not yet been shown to reduce the impact of parental depression on parenting or child outcomes. Abstract:The impact of maternal depression on parenting is well established and there is a clear interaction between maternal depression and parenting that is predictive of child outcomes. The research on paternal depression is more limited but suggests the father's mental health may be an independent risk factor for both parenting and child outcomes. There is insufficient evidence that treatment of depression alone-be it through pharmacological or psychological interventions -is able to substantially reduce the impact of depression on child outcomes. The evidence of interventions aimed at parenting and/or child outcomes in the context of depression is limited and the findings that are available are mixed.

Oxytocin: a parenting hormone

“…Evidence suggests that individual variations in OT are meaningfully associated with variations in maternal and paternal behavior and can index disruptions under high-risk conditions, such as premature birth, maternal depression, or contextual risk [1,26,27]. Maternal depression across the first years of life [28] has been linked with lower baseline OT [29] and attenuated OT response [30] in both mother and child. Moreover, "endocrine synchrony" between OT levels in parent and child have been demonstrated, highlighting the interactional transfer of parent-child neurobiology [31,32].…”

Is intimate partner violence more common in pregnant women with severe mental illness? A retrospective study

“…Pregnancy and the first year postpartum are important as a foundation for offspring lifelong health and wellbeing and evidence for the potential detrimental impact of perinatal mental health is clear (Stein et al, 2014;Michel, 2001;Lewis et al, 2014;Galbally and Lewis, 2017).…”

Maternal Depressive Symptoms During the Pre‐ and Postnatal Periods and Infant Attention to Emotional Faces

“…Chronic depressive maternal symptoms seem to be more predictive of adverse child outcomes compared to transient symptoms (Murray, Halligan, & Cooper, 2010;van der Waerden et al, 2015). Whereas past research has mainly focused on the effects of maternal postnatal depression, a recent emphasis has been to understand the specific effects of maternal prenatal depression on child development (Galbally & Lewis, 2017). Importantly, the mechanisms for the effects of pre-versus postnatal exposures are likely to differ (Galbally & Lewis, 2017), and these exposures should, therefore, be also addressed separately.…”