Maternal depressive symptomatology over the transition to parenthood: Assessing the influence of marital satisfaction and marital sex role traditionalism.

Abstract

This longitudinal study examined the importance of the marital context in predicting maternal depressive symptomatology, as assessed with marital satisfaction and the endorsement of traditional sex role beliefs about the marriage, in 142 first-time mothers and their husbands or partners. Data were collected during pregnancy and at 6 weeks and 9 months infant age. Maternal and paternal reports about the marriage were assessed, and analyses were done on the way in which marital context scores interacted with earlier and concurrent levels of maternal depressive symptomatology. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that the final model explained 57% of the variance; marital context contributed 18% of the variance beyond that of earlier symptom levels in predicting mothers'depressive symptoms 9 months after the birth of the first child