Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
SPECIAL SECTION: ASSESSMENT OF INFANT AND TODDLER MENTAL HEALTH: ADVANCES AND CHALLENGESMaternal Depression and Comorbidity: Predicting Early Parenting, Attachment Security, and Toddler Social-Emotional Problems and Competencies
Section snippets
Participants
Pregnant women were recruited from an obstetrics and gynecology department in a health maintenance organization in a mid-sized city in the northeastern United States. Women who did not understand English and infants born preterm or with serous birth complications were excluded. Approximately 50% of women approached completed a questionnaire packet in the second or third trimester of pregnancy (N = 128). See Baker and colleagues (1999) for a description of the prenatal study sample. This report
RESULTS
Prior to examining the role of maternal depression in the early course of children's social-emotional development, associations between demographic variables (i.e., maternal age, maternal education, household income, number of children, and child sex) and maternal depressive symptoms, maternal diagnostic status, emotional availability at 4 months postpartum, security of infant attachment, and maternal ratings of infant-toddler problems and competencies were examined for consideration as
DISCUSSION
This study highlights the importance of comorbidity in conferring risk for problems in early parent–child interactions and infant attachment status. Women who experienced a depressive illness, as well as an anxiety, substance, or eating disorder had less optimal play interactions with their 4-month-old infants than either mothers who had experienced depression only or mothers who had no history of psychopathology. By 14 months of age, infants in the comorbid group were at very high risk for
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Cited by (0)
This study was supported by NIMH grant 49684 to Dr. Carter.