Maternal Depression and Early Parenting: A Comparison Between Culturally and Linguistically Diverse and Australian born Mothers.

Abstract

To examine the risk of perinatal depression, parenting stress and infant sleep practices in Australian culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) women. Within the Mercy Pregnancy and Emotional Wellbeing Study, we examined 487 pregnant women of whom 52 were CaLD and 435 non-CaLD. Depression was measured using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. In addition, Parenting Stress Index and infant sleep measures were collected. Fewer CaLD women had a depression diagnosis but there were no differences between CaLD and non-CaLD women for perinatal mental health symptoms. More mothers in the CaLD group were bed sharing with their infant during the night at six months; however, bedsharing was only associated with higher parenting stress for non-CaLD mothers. Findings suggest both differences in infant sleep parenting practices and in parenting stress but not general emotional wellbeing. Future research is required to replicate these findings.