Abstract
Objective: The impact of postpartum depression on mother-infant interaction, affective responses to infant cries, as well as hormonal and autonomic responses to infant stimuli were examined in a sample of primiparous and multiparous women. Methods: A sample of 140 depressed and non-depressed women where randomly assigned to one of two conditions: 1) cry (pain; hunger); and 2) neutral (female neutral voice). Emotional response scores, salivary cortisol, and heart rate were collected. Depression was designated if women scored 12 or above on the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale (EPDS). Results: Depressed mothers reported feeling more anxious and negative when listening to infant cries and responded more strongly to the pain as opposed to the hunger cries compared to non-depressed mothers. Depressed mothers also showed higher overall cortisol levels compared to non-depressed mothers, with non-depressed mothers demonstrating a slight increase in response to the cries, while depressed mothers had a blunted response to the cries. No differences were reported in maternal heart-rate. Conclusions: PPD has a clear impact on a mother’s interaction with her infant which in turn, can have substantial effects on the infant’s social and emotional development.
Highlights
Many new mothers feel depressed at some point after the birth of their infants [1]
The symptom profile of postpartum depression (PPD) resembles that of a major depressive episode experienced at other times in life; including fatigue, negative affect, negative thoughts, suicidal ideation, and low self-esteem [3,10,11,12,13], but it is unique in it’s timing, always involves at least the mother-baby dyad, and in most cases an entire family unit [14]
The correlation between Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale (EPDS) and the CES-D (Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression; a 20-item measure that asks caregivers to rate the frequency of symptoms associated with depression that were experienced in the past week [41]) in the present population was r =.66 (n=140, p
Summary
Many new mothers feel depressed at some point after the birth of their infants [1]. Postpartum blues; the most mild form of the postpartum mood disturbances; has been reported at a prevalence of 2685% depending on the diagnostic criteria used [1,2,3]. The disturbance may persist beyond the blues, leading to more serious postpartum depression (PPD) [3,4,5]. The speech of depressed mothers tends to contain more negative affect, while in play interactions they exhibit fewer responses to the infant’s behaviour [19]. Other studies have found that the depressed dyad presented less vocalizations and less visual communications; at 6-months postpartum they used less affective and less informative speech; and their overall level of tactile interaction behaviour was reduced [15,23,24]
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