Maternal wellbeing and perceived sufficiency of support from child and family services: a longitudinal study

As maternal distress has many negative consequences both for mothers and for children, support from child and family services could be very effective in preventing maternal distress from escalating into more serious problems, such as mental illness or parental burnout. We studied the longitudinal and cross-sectional effects of the reported unmet need of support to the levels of daytime tiredness, stress, and depressive and anxiety symptoms of mothers with young children.

The study uses data from the Child-Sleep birth cohort (2011-2013). Mothers were evaluated at a prenatal measurement point (n=1667) and 8 months (n=1298), 24 months (n=1038), and 5 years (n=722) postpartum using self-report questionnaires. Logistic regression was used to study the association between reported levels of daytime tiredness, stress, and depressive and anxiety symptoms and the reported unmet need of support from child and family services.

We found that the reported unmet need had both a longitudinal and a cross-sectional association with increased depressive symptoms, stress and daytime tiredness among mothers with young children. Mothers who had reported unmet need at most timepoints had the highest odds of experiencing distress.

Our results indicate that external support from child and family services might be an important tool for preventing and intervening in maternal distress.