Treatment of postpartum depression in mothers: Secondary benefits to the infants

This study examined the quality of mother-infant interaction and levels of perceived stress and parenting efficacy in association with mothers' levels of depression among mothers with significant depressive symptoms during the postpartum period, who were followed prospectively during treatment, and their infants less than 6 months old. Mothers with postpartum depression (n = 19) were treated with medication, and the mothers were observed with their infants prior to treatment and 3 and 6 months later. A comparison group of nondepressed mothers (n = 25) was included to control for the normal developmental changes associated with the postpartum period. The depressed women experienced a significant reduction in depressive symptoms and did not differ significantly from well mothers 6 months after beginning treatment. Despite initial levels of parenting quality and depression, mothers' reduced levels of depression, after 12 weeks of treatment, were associated with improvements in the quality of their interactions with their infants and with improvements in their infants' quality of play. For both perceived stress and parenting efficacy beliefs, both depressed and well mothers showed a significant improvement from the initial to the 12-week visit, and there were no significant differences between depressed and well mothers' perceived stress or efficacy beliefs at the 12-week visit. Depression at the 12-week visit did not predict perceived stress or efficacy beliefs beyond the variance accounted for by initial levels of those variables and depression. The impact of reducing levels of maternal depression symptoms supports theoretical models of the role of parenting in the association between maternal depression and child functioning. Further, these findings support the benefits to infants of reducing depression in mothers.