Maternal postpartum depression and the development of depression in children up to 15 years of age

Depression is particularly common among women of childbearing age and many of them are expected to experience postpartum depression. Much research has been conducted about the postpartum depression and its effects on children, but few of them have exactly studied the relationship between postpartum depression and the growth of depression in children. This study aims at investigating postpartum depression and its effect on depression development in children up to age 51. We also addressed other elements such as the ability of depressed mothers in coping with problems, occurrence of suicidal thoughts in depressed and non depressed mothers. Two EPDS and CDI questionnaires were used in order to determine depression in mothers and their children. In order to analyze the results, One-Way ANOVA and LSD Post-Hoc Test were used. The results show that there is a negligible relationship between postpartum depression and child depression so the role of other possible stimuli such as family s financial status might be considered as well. Also, we concluded that suicidal thoughts cannot be only the result of depression and depression hadn’t had any influence on mothers mental ability to deal with problems.

Keywords:

postpartum depression , child depression , mothers , children