Peer-reviewed article
Maternal patterns of antenatal and postnatal depressed mood and the impact on child health at 3-years postpartum.
Erin J. Rotheram-Fuller, Mark Tomlinson, Aaron Scheffler, Thomas W. Weichle, Panteha Hayati Rezvan et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study followed 1,238 pregnant women in Cape Town, South Africa over 3 years to examine how maternal depression at different times affects children's health and development. Mothers with depressed mood faced greater poverty, food insecurity, partner violence, and other challenges. By age 3, children of mothers with depression showed slower physical growth and more behavioral problems, with postnatal depression appearing to have a stronger impact on children than antenatal depression.
Key points
- 19.7% of mothers experienced both antenatal and postnatal depression, 24.3% postnatal only, 13.8% antenatal only, and 42.3% had no depressed mood
- Mothers with depression were less educated, had lower incomes, more food insecurity, partner violence, problematic alcohol use, and higher HIV seropositivity
- At 36 months, maternal depression patterns were significantly associated with children's compromised weight and height growth
- Children of depressed mothers showed more internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems at 3 years
- Postnatal depressed mood had a larger impact on children than antenatal depressed mood alone
Limitations
The study identifies associations between maternal depression and child outcomes but cannot fully separate the effects of depression from the multiple environmental stressors and poverty that accompany it. Language and cognition outcomes showed no significant differences across maternal depression patterns, limiting conclusions about developmental impact.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The consequences of maternal depressed mood on children's growth, health, and cognitive and language development are examined over the first 3 years of life. METHOD: Pregnant women in 24 periurban township neighborhoods in Cape Town, South Africa (N = 1,238 mothers) were randomized by neighborhood to a home visiting intervention or a standard care condition. Reassessments were conducted for 93%-85% of mothers at 2-weeks, 6-, 18-, and 36-months postbirth. Regressions were conducted on measures of children's growth, behavior, language, and cognition to examine the impact of four patterns of depressed mood: antenatal only (n = 154, 13.8%), postnatal only (n = 272, 24.3%), antenatal and postnatal (n = 220, 19.7%), and no depressed mood on any assessment (n = 473, 42.3%). RESULTS: Patterns of depressed mood were similar across intervention conditions. Depressed mothers were significantly less educated, had lower incomes, were less likely to be employed or to have electricity; were more likely to report problematic drinking of alcohol, experience food insecurity, interpersonal partner violence, and to be HIV seropositive. At 36 months, the pattern of maternal depressed mood over time was significantly associated with children's compromised physical growth, both in weight and height, and more internalizing and externalizing symptoms of behavior problems. Measures of language and cognition were similar across maternal patterns of depressed mood. CONCLUSIONS: Mothers who report depressed mood face significantly more life challenges, both environmental stressors related to poverty and other problematic behaviors. More proximal, postnatal depressed mood appears to have a larger influence on their children, compared with antenatal depressed mood. (PsycINFO Database Record
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Home visiting intervention compared to standard care
- Population
- 1,238 pregnant women in periurban township neighborhoods in Cape Town, South Africa
Key finding
Patterns of maternal depressed mood were similar across intervention and standard care conditions, suggesting the intervention did not significantly reduce depression
Rotheram-Fuller et al. · Prof. Mark Tomlinson (OpenAlex works) · 1 Mar 2018