This study used a comprehensive, interview-based measure of life stress to assess the role of different types of stress in predicting first onset of psychiatric disorders among daughters of depressed (n = 22) mothers and healthy (n = 22) mothers. Several types of stress were assessed: Chronic interpersonal stress, chronic non-interpersonal stress, episodic dependent (i.e., self-generated) inter...

Prenatal depressive symptoms, anxiety, anger and daily hassles were investigated in 156 depressed and non-depressed pregnant women and their depressed and non-depressed partners (fathers-to-be). Depressed versus non-depressed fathers had higher depression, anxiety and daily hassles scores. Although the pregnant women in general had lower anxiety, anger and daily hassles scores than the men, the...

The effects of depressed mothers' touching on their infants' behavior were investigated during the still-face situation. 48 depressed and nondepressed mothers and their 3-month-old infants were randomly assigned to control and experimental conditions. 4 successive 90-sec periods were implemented: (A) normal play, (B) still-face-no-touch, (C) still-face-with-touch, and (A) normal play. Depressed...

One hundred-thirty-nine women participated in this longitudinal study from the third trimester of pregnancy through 8-months postpartum. Women completed depression scales at several time points and rated their infant's characteristics and childcare stress at 2- and 6-months postpartum. Mothers' reports of infant temperament were significantly different for depressed and non-depressed mothers, w...

The goal of this study was to examine overgeneral autobiographical memory in a population at-risk for depression (i.e., children of depressed mothers). We predicted that children of depressed mothers would display less-specific memories than children of non-depressed mothers and that these results would be observed among children with no prior history of depression themselves. Participants in t...

EEG activity of 10-month-old infants of depressed and non-depressed mothers was compared during stimuli designed to produce happy and sad responses. During a baseline recording and during their happy facial expressions, infants of depressed mothers showed greater relative right frontal EEG asymmetry compared to infants of non-depressed mothers. The greater relative right frontal EEG asymmetry w...

BACKGROUND Maternal antenatal depression has long-term consequences for children's health. We examined if home visits by community health workers (CHW) can improve growth outcomes for children of mothers who are antenatally depressed. METHODS A cluster randomized controlled trial of all pregnant, neighbourhood women in Cape Town, South Africa. Almost all pregnant women (98 %, N = 1238) were r...

Getting a toddler to comply with instructions is a common task for mothers, and one that may evoke different parenting styles as early as toddlerhood. In the present study, depressed adolescent mothers were classified by the “parenting styles” defined by Baumrind (1991) as authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, or disengaged based on their behavior during a structured play/compliance task wi...

OBJECTIVE To assess the effectiveness of a short-term intervention for improving interaction behaviors of newborn infants with their depressed mothers. METHODS Depressed mothers assigned to the experimental group first observed an administration of the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) at delivery. Mothers then used a similar instrument, the Mother's Assessment of the Behavior of he...

INTRODUCTION Birth is one of the most wonderful events in nature and pregnancy and delivery are major developments for most married women. Similar to the pregnancy period, the period of time following delivery is accompanied by certain mental and physical changes in women. During this time, mothers experience a full range of mental disorders, varying from minor to psychotic. The objective of th...