Depression can be all-encompassing, altering everything we do, so it?s not surprising that a recent study by researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shows that mothers who experience symptoms of depression are less likely to interact with their babies than mothers who have no depressive symptoms.
Depressed mothers, according to the study, don?t breast-feed, play with or read to their newborn infants at the same levels other mothers do.
The researchers found that nearly 18 percent of mothers experience symptoms of depression two to four months after the births of their children, said Cynthia S. Minkovitz, one of the study?s authors and a professor in the department of population and family health sciences at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The study revealed that 22.4 percent of mothers with depressive symptoms were likely to show their children books, compared to 28.2 percent of mothers without depression. In the study, 91.9 percent of mothers without symptoms played with their infants at least once a day compared to 87.4 percent of the depressed mothers.
But the most startling disparity came with breast-feeding. In the study, only 43.5 percent of mothers with depressivesymptoms were likely to breast-feed at two to four months after birth, while 56.98 percent of mothers who did not have depressive symptoms were breast-feeding at that time.
“These symptoms clearly have an unfavorable impact on a mother?s parenting practices, particularly those that involved active engagement with the child,” Minkovitz said. “Our results highlight the importance of screening new mothers for depressive symptoms.”
Depression after birth
Researchers found that nearly 18 percent of mothers experience symptoms of depression two to four months after the births of their children.
