Depression’s impact on kids
WOMEN, take note. If you are suffering from depression, it might heighten stress in your child and have a lifelong negative affect on your child’s well-being, a study has found.
The study, published in the Journal of Diabetes, suggests that depressed mothers have higher levels of cortisol (CT) and secretory immunoglobulin (s-IgA) – markers of stress
– and display more negative attitudes towards parenting, characterised by negativity, intrusion and criticism.
“Following mothers and children across the first decade of life, we found that exposure to maternal depression impairs functioning of the child’s immune system and stress response,” said senior author Ruth Feldman from the Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya, a not-for-profit, nonsectarian research college in Israel.
“Such disruptions to the child’s stress and immune system, in turn, led to greater child psychopathology,” Feldman added.
For the study, the research team followed 125 children from birth to 10 years of age. At 10 years, mothers’ and children’s CT and s-IgA levels were measured.
The team observed their interaction and the participants also underwent psychiatric diagnoses.
The researchers found that children of depressed mothers tended to exhibit certain psychiatric disorders, have higher s-IgA levels and display greater social-withdrawal behaviour.
“We also found that the impairments to the child’s stress response and immunity were shaped by similar effects of the depression on the mothers’ stress and immune system and their consequent impact on reducing the quality of maternal caregiving,” Feldman said.
The researchers noted that their findings showed the complex effects of maternal depression on children’s physiology, health and psychopathology and advocated the need for early interventions that specifically targeted maternal stress and enhanced parenting behaviour.