Postpartum Depression Can Affect A Child's Stress Reactions For Life

by Monica Joshi

The incidence of clinical depression in adults, especially among parents, is almost epidemic and it continues to rise. Almost twenty percent of the North American population meets the criteria for some sort of depression. These are not people who are simply "feeling blue", but ones that actually have real difficulty functioning in life. Imagine this debilitating feeling right after having a baby. More than ever, it has become important to know the effects of the mother's depression on the newborn child and potentially the child's adult life.

A new study spearheaded by Sarah Halligan from the University of Bath has further highlighted the importance of a mother's postnatal mental health on her child's later-life psychology. The study utilized a sample of mothers and children who had been followed and assessed periodically for more than two decades. The children born to mothers who had experienced postnatal depression exhibited greater stress responses than those whose mothers had not been depressed.

The 76 participants of the study, with a mean age of 22 years, were given a standardized stressful task. The task included giving a five-minute speech about themselves to an unknown audience followed by five minutes of mental math (i.e. counting down in increments of 17 from 2023). The half of the participants whose mothers had had postpartum depression showed greater stress responses as indicated by elevated levels of cortisol. Even after controlling for gender, baseline cortisol levels, current depression or anxiety, history of depression or anxiety, recent negative life events and the frequency of maternal depression, the salivary cortisol levels still measured high in those with mothers who had had postpartum depression.

Greater spikes in cortisol levels following a stressful event are typically associated with being maladaptive, as well as with impaired declarative memory, depressive traits, and other psychological disorders. The more surprising result of the study was that in this sample, the children born to mothers with postpartum depression recovered quicker from the stress than those without mothers with postpartum depression. The authors of the study have speculated that this might be a result of needing to develop more dynamic post-stress response systems.

The result of this study further emphasizes the importance of maternal mental health, especially post pregnancy. It is estimated that roughly 9 – 16 percent of postpartum women will experience postpartum depression and the numbers keep increasing. With the added stress of needing to go back to work because of lack of maternal or paternal leave while simultaneously caring for the newborn child, the woman can be left feeling overwhelmed and overworked.

As this study shows, the consequences of postpartum depression can nevertheless only be seen over two decades later. It is absolutely vital for there to be more research on the other aspects of the offspring's neurological conditions to see other ways in which they might be affected by an early exposure to depression.