Reciprocal Influence of Depressive Symptoms Between Mothers and Fathers During the First Postpartum Year: A Comparison Among Full-Term, Very Low, and Extremely Low Birth Weight Infants

Neri, Erica; Giovagnoli, Sara; Genova, Federica; Benassi, Mariagrazia; Stella, Marcello; Agostini, Francesca

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2020.578264

Cited by 17 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…Moreover, contrary to the results of other authors (Neri et al, 2020;Thiel et al, 2020), we have not found a statistically significant correlation between maternal and paternal depressiveness scores. In addition, due to the low internal consistency of EPDS for the assessment of fathers at 6 months, these results could not be used in the analyses.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…This is especially relevant in light of recent findings on early programming of preterm infants' temperament, via gene methylation processes, due to neonatal exposure to pain and stress related to medical procedures and treatment in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) (Cassiano et al, 2016;Montirosso et al, 2016). Furthermore, interconnections between the severity of preterm infant medical conditions and parental mental health have already been established (Agostini et al, 2014;Carson et al, 2015;Neri et al, 2020). Neonatal data that we have collected and included in our sample characteristics clearly point to the numerous challenges that the infants under study were exposed to, not to mention an additional emotional burden for the parents.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The percentage of mothers who meet the criteria of depression many months after delivery turned out to be even higher in women with depression in life history. The risk for depression has been proven to be higher in mothers of preterm infants compared to mothers of full-term infants not only shortly after delivery but also throughout the following months (Vigod et al, 2010;Neri et al, 2020). Moreover, although the directions of these associations are complex, researchers point to the links between preterm infants mothers' postpartum depression and the chronicity of maternal mental health problems (Miles et al, 2007;Pace et al, 2016), paternal depression (Carlberg et al, 2018;Neri et al, 2020), and less than optimal child developmental outcomes (Cheng et al, 2016;Narayanan and Naerde, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The risk for depression has been proven to be higher in mothers of preterm infants compared to mothers of full-term infants not only shortly after delivery but also throughout the following months (Vigod et al, 2010;Neri et al, 2020). Moreover, although the directions of these associations are complex, researchers point to the links between preterm infants mothers' postpartum depression and the chronicity of maternal mental health problems (Miles et al, 2007;Pace et al, 2016), paternal depression (Carlberg et al, 2018;Neri et al, 2020), and less than optimal child developmental outcomes (Cheng et al, 2016;Narayanan and Naerde, 2016). For this reason, investigating factors predictive of the persistence of maternal depressiveness is of crucial importance for clinical practice and early intervention addressed to families of preterm infants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The increased risk for postpartum depression should raise our particular concern as the links between perinatal parental depression and a child's mental health and developmental problems later in life have been well documented in preterm children (Cheng et al, 2016;Trumello et al, 2018;Neri et al, 2020;Pisoni et al, 2020), adding to the already complex array of challenges to child development related to biological immaturity, neonatal complications, quality of the early experience, etc. (Aarnoudse-Moens et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Maternal Mood and Perception of Infant Temperament at Three Months Predict Depressive Symptoms Scores in Mothers of Preterm Infants at Six Months

2022

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Postpartum depression is more prevalent in mothers and fathers of preterm infants compared to parents of full-term infants and may have long-term detrimental consequences for parental mental health and child development. The temperamental profile of an infant has been postulated as one of the important factors associated with parental depressiveness in the first months postpartum. This study aimed to examine the longitudinal relationship between depressive symptoms and perceived infant temperament at 3 months corrected age, and depressive symptoms at 6 months corrected age among mothers and fathers of infants born preterm. We assessed 59 families with infants born before the 34th gestational week using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EDPS) and the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised. We found that mothers’ scores on EPDS and infants’ Orienting/regulation at 3 months corrected age predicted mothers’ EPDS scores at 6 months corrected age. In particular, higher depressive scores were related to higher depressive symptoms at 6 months corrected age, whereas higher infant Orienting/regulation was related to lower depressive symptoms at 6 months corrected age. Due to the low internal consistency of EPDS at 6 months for fathers, we were unable to conduct similar analyses for fathers. Our results point to the importance of considering both early indices of maternal mood as well as mother-reported measures of preterm infant temperament in the attempts to predict levels of maternal depressiveness in later months of an infant’s life. Further studies are urgently needed in order to better understand the associations between depressiveness and infant temperament in fathers, and with more consideration for the severity of the effects of infant prematurity.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%