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Dealing with
Postpartum Depression?
Why Getting Help Is a Good Thing for Mom and Baby By Alexandria Powell
Parenting Through the PainA recent study published in the journal Pediatrics looked at how parenting behaviors differ between depressed and non-depressed parents. The study examined preventive health behaviors such as putting a baby to sleep on its back. It also looked at interactions between depressed parents and their babies.
"What we found across the board was that moms who were more depressed tended to engage in preventive health behaviors less often than moms who weren't depressed," says James Paulson, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Eastern Virginia Medical School and one of the authors of the study. "The other behaviors that we looked at were the positive interactions between parent and child things like singing songs, taking them out with you and playing games." Again, mothers who scored higher on a survey designed to measure depression symptoms engaged in those behaviors less.