Training program for depressed moms helps babies
Infants of depressed mothers show “quite dramatic” increases in positive responses after their mothers complete a 5-week course designed to help them better interpret and respond to infant behavior, even though the course had no apparent effect on depression.
“It was a significant difference and gave us a pretty strong message that it was having a pretty powerful effect,” Dr. Robert Short of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, one of the study’s authors, told Reuters Health.
Up to 30 percent of mothers may develop postpartum depression, which makes it more difficult for them to interact appropriately with their infants. This can lead to developmental problems and even failure to thrive, Short and his team note in the Journal of Affective Disorders.
Interventions targeted at improving mothers’ mood have had little impact on the quality of mother-child interaction, which can remain poor even after a mother’s depression lifts, they add.
The researchers determined if the “Keys to Caregiving program,” developed 16 years ago to help parents understand their infants’ cues and behavior and respond to them appropriately, could help mothers with mild-to-moderate depression and their babies. The researchers enrolled 11 mother-infant pairs in the study. All participated in five weekly group sessions began when the infants were 3-months old.
Before the intervention, infants showed relatively few positive emotional expressions during face-to-face interactions with their mothers, but after the program, expressions of interest and joy were much more frequent, similar to how often they are seen in infants of non-depressed mothers.
Mothers’ level of depression did not change after the intervention; however, the researchers note, “an infant who begins to more frequently show interest in the mother, smile and sustain eye contact is also likely to evoke more enjoyable and arousing experiences for the mother herself.”
The next step, Short said, will be to do a larger study using a control group of mother-infant pairs that don’t go through the Keys to Caregiving program.
Benefits of the program aren’t limited to new moms with depression, he added; all first-time moms could probably use some help in learning how to read their infants’ cues and respond to them appropriately.
SOURCE: Journal of Affective Disorders, March 2007.
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