Abstract
Postpartum parental depression, even of mild intensity and short duration, has negative consequences on child development, including increased externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Studies revealed that the links between parental depression and child development are mediated by parenting difficulties. On the other hand, the mediating role of problematic family-level relationships, such as low coparenting support and high conflict between the parents, has rarely been considered, although coparenting difficulties have been linked with both increased depressive symptoms in parents and increased symptoms in toddlers. In the present study, we proposed testing a comprehensive mediation model linking parental depression, coparenting, and child symptoms. At 3 months postpartum, a convenience sample of 69 parental couples completed the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. In addition, we assessed levels of coparenting support and conflict during a mother–father–infant play situation, the Lausanne Trilogue Play. At 18 months postpartum, both parents assessed child symptoms with the Symptom Checklist Questionnaire. The results showed that coparenting support mediated the links between parental depressive symptoms and child symptoms, but only for mothers: Maternal depressive symptoms were linked with lower coparenting support, which in turn predicted increased psychofunctional symptoms and behavior problems assessed by mothers. Although coparenting conflict behaviors were not predicted by parents’ depressive symptoms, higher conflict was unexpectedly linked with fewer behavior problems assessed by both parents. The present study allowed us to unveil complex pathways between mild parental mood disturbances, family-level relationships, and child development in the first months of the child’s life.
Highlights
Parental depressive symptoms are common in the postpartum period: Prevalence rates indicate that approximately 15% of mothers and 10% of fathers meet the criteria for clinical depression in the first year postpartum (O’Hara and Swain, 1996; Paulson and Bazemore, 2010)
The present study aimed to extend these results by testing a mediation model according to which maternal and paternal depressive symptoms would lead to higher coparenting conflict and lower support, which would in turn lead to more negative outcomes in infants, measured in terms of difficult behaviors, and psychofunctional symptoms
Likelihood ratio tests showed that the scalar model should be preferred, as its adjustment was not statistically poorer than either the configural (χ2 = 5.979, df = 16, p = 0.988) or the metric model (χ2 = 4.858, df = 9, p = 0.847). This result showed that, for both mothers and fathers, all responses to the items in the test were explained by a similar two-factor structure, that the strength of the links between latent and observed variables was similar for both parents, and that the intercepts of the observed variables could be considered equivalent
Summary
Parental depressive symptoms are common in the postpartum period: Prevalence rates indicate that approximately 15% of mothers and 10% of fathers meet the criteria for clinical depression in the first year postpartum (O’Hara and Swain, 1996; Paulson and Bazemore, 2010). The prevalence data for paternal depressive disorders suggested that the postpartum period was a risk period for fathers, which led researchers to investigate the consequences of paternal PPD. The results globally suggested that paternal PPD could extensively affect child development (Ramchandani et al, 2005; Goodman et al, 2014) and that fathers’ impaired parenting and relational competences were likely to mediate these effects (Sethna et al, 2012, 2015; Parfitt et al, 2013). There is a need to go beyond the parent–child dyads and to adopt a family perspective of the consequences of PPD by investigating the role of family-level relationships in the influence of maternal and paternal PPD on child development
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