Therefore, this study proposes that
maternal depressive symptoms transfer to adult children through two succeeding mediators: perceived emotional availability of mothers and social skills.
Maternal depressive symptoms predicted less accurate emotion labeling in children, while maternal sensitivity was associated with more accurate emotion matching, especially for sadness and anger.
This prospective 20 - year study assessed associations between
maternal depressive symptoms in infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and child and adolescent depressive symptoms in a sample of families at high psychosocial risk.
Moreover, greater - postnatal - than -
prenatal maternal depressive symptoms were associated with lower right frontal FC in 18 month olds (β = -0.382, p = 0.002, df = 58), after adjusting for post-conceptual age on the EEG visit day.
Citation: Soe NN, Wen DJ, Poh JS, Li Y, Broekman BFP, Chen H, et al. (2016) Pre - and
Post-Natal Maternal Depressive Symptoms in Relation with Infant Frontal Function, Connectivity, and Behaviors.
According to these results, two mediation paths were of particular interest, as
higher maternal depressive symptoms predicted lower coparenting support, which predicted higher psychofunctional and externalizing symptoms.
In line with previous research on the disadvantage of the incongruence of prenatal and postnatal environments on early child development [25], we hypothesized that children whose mothers had elevated postnatal
maternal depressive symptoms when compared to that during pregnancy may show greater atypical frontal EEG activity and frontal functional connectivity and greater internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems.
Minkovitz et al concluded that «Increased provider training for
recognizing maternal depressive symptoms in office settings, more effective systems of referral, and development of partnerships between adult and pediatric providers could contribute to enhanced receipt of care among young children.»
We can not determine from this cross-sectional study whether either maternal obesity or
maternal depressive symptoms cause increased TV viewing in children and, if so, what other factors may mediate these relationships.
However, self - report measures have been shown to provide valid classification of obesity status among adults.35 - 37 The CES - D is not meant to be a diagnostic tool but has been shown to perform well as a screening tool, 38 and such measures are likely to be used in an office setting to
assess maternal depressive symptoms.