Post Partum Depression Flashcards
How do foundations of emotional life develop?
Due to engagement with the caregiver - caregivers who respond sensitively, facilitate development
What do dyadic processes support?
Relational knowing
What is it?
A depressive disorder, during or following childbirth
Can occur anytime during pregnancy or within first 4 weeks
Usually diagnosed within first year of delivery, 50% have it before delivery
Same criteria as depression - 5 symptoms, 2 week period
How many people does it effect?
13-20% of mothers, 10% of fathers within first 12 months after birth
How long does it last?
Up to a year and beyond, recurrent illness, 70/80% chance of it coming back
Cause unknown
Over 1 million children living with a parent with depression
What is it not?
Maternal deprivation - infants of mothers with PPD still form attachments but no attachment with deprivation
What happens to the parent brain when becoming a parent?
The brain prepares us for the journey
Areas linked to caregiving become active
What systems responds when someone is becoming a parent?
The limbic system (rewards)
Empathy network - insula
Oxytocin system (released into blood when giving milk/bonding)
Amygdala
Neural activity to infant cry
In healthy mothers - reward system becomes active, only happens for their own infant
Depressed - no activity in reward system
Depressed - reduced accuracy in detecting happy faces
What did the experiment show that compared parenting practises?
Compared 867 depressed mums vs 4007 non depressed, measured using a questionnaire, 2-4 months post partum
Safety practises - more likely to put child in wrong sleeping position and less likely to lower water temperature
Feeding practises - PPD more likely to give infant cereal, water, juice, less likely to breastfeed (none sig when control for covariates, apart from breastfeeding)
Socio - developmental - less likely to read, play, talk and have regular routines (all sig after covariates)
What do observations of mothers with their 2 year olds show?
Observations of mother, more likely to ignore child requests, less responsive (less positive, high criticism). Interactions were shorter, less likely to repair mismatch. Children = more distress, less active, cling to mum more, less responsive parents, exposed to more neg conditions
Granet et al - effects of depression on regulation and emotion
Observed interactions at home, hypothesises less gaze and touch and less reliance on mother as external regulator - anger paradigm at 9 months
Results - synchrony appears later in depressed, duration of gaze reduced, too much/too little gaze is correlated with emotional dysregulation
Less effect when mum is there, less emotionally regulated
Control and anxious - higher affect when stranger there
More self-comforting
Break mutual gaze
Interactive repair in depressed mothers
29 depressed, 14 non depressed
Less coordination in PPD and less likely to repair as self focussed. Infants less responsive to faces and voices (other baby crying), aren’t bothered about strangers, less exploring, less securely attached (can predict attachment before infant is born by mums state of mind)
What are the long term effects?
Increased amygdala volume and cortisol levels
When playing a card game, 5 year olds made more negative comments when they lost
Low birth rate, anger/withdrawal, internalising and externalising problems, ADHD
Considerations
PP can be impacted via genes, parents and other factors correlated with depression
