Maternal Depression and Physical Health of Under-Five Children in Turkey

Maternal depression is the most prevalent mental health problem worldwide, especially in low- and middle-income countries. It impairs the cognitive, physical, and social abilities of mothers and disturbs effective parenting practices. Therefore, the consequences of mental, physical, and social suffering are not limited to the mother herself but are transmitted to future generations by negatively affecting the child's health.

This study aims to analyse the relationship between maternal depression and child's physical health in Turkey, a middle-income, developing country.

By using the 2019 round of the "Turkish Health Survey" dataset prepared by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), we focus on the general health status, anaemia prevalence, morbidity of acute respiratory infections (ARI) and diarrhoea along with other common short-term childhood illnesses among under-five children. Maternal depression is assessed by the standardised eight-item version of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8). We employ a linear probability model to examine the relationship between maternal depression and the physical health of under-five children. In addition, we investigate the potential protective role of maternal education against the detrimental effects of maternal depression on child health. Since we are simultaneously analysing several outcome measures, in order to avoid any Type I error, we use the novel Romano-Wolf multiple hypothesis testing method.

We find that children whose mothers suffer from mild to severe depression are at a 12 percentage points higher risk of contracting infectious diseases. Similarly, the total number of non-chronic illnesses a child falls victim to increases by one-third if the mother portrays depressive symptoms. In addition, our results suggest that completing at least high school reduces the burdens of maternal depression on children's physical health by 8 percentage points.

Considering both the individual and societal burden of infectious disease prevalence, we conclude that the development of worldwide policies and initiatives aimed at decreasing maternal depression as much as increasing maternal education is essential for safeguarding the rights of both women and children, especially in developing countries.

The findings of this research provide a linear association between maternal mental health and under-five child's physical health, rather than a causal effect.