Can a Mother's Depression Effect Her Infant's Behavior - Essay Example

Can a Mothers Depression Effect Her Infants Behavior? According to Dawson, et al. (2003), depressed mothers can have ill affects on their infants. In a sense, they can actually make the infants overly emotional and cause behavior problems. Researchers are not sure why this happens but they are studying this from every direction. Could the depression have something to do with the brain? "Its possible" Says Dawson, Panagiotides, Klinger and Spieker (1997). These researchers studied the EEG activity in the frontal regions of the brain to see what would happen when they were shown negative emotions by their mothers. There was no significant difference between mothers of depressed or non-depressed mothers. It would seem like mothers who were depressed would make their babies more vulnerable to negative emotions but the research shows otherwise. The researchers observed the EEG responses of 34 infants between the ages of 11 and 17 who were brought to a child development center; they placed the infants in highchairs. They recorded the EEG activity as they stimulated the children to evoke a variety of emotions. During this time, mothers were not to talk to their infants so that they would not influence the EEG activity in any way. The results of their experiments found that infants of mothers who were depressed had higher EEG activity in their frontal brain area when negative emotions were exhibited. An interesting point was that there were no differences in infants when they were exhibiting positive emotions, whether their mothers were depressed or not. This was fascinating in that it shows the power of positive emotion. If we could teach children in their infancy to focus on positive situations, perhaps we could turn them into very positive people as they grow older. The researchers suggested there were several things that were surprising to them. The emotional behavior of infants in both groups showed no difference in their emotional behavior. Also, their facial expressions did not change very much as they were conducting the experiment. Another study done by Dawson et al. (2003), somewhat contradicts the findings in the EEG studies. In this study it was found that infants showed negative emotion more often with depressed mothers than non-depressed mothers. Infants of depressed mothers were also less vocal than those infants of mothers who were not depressed. Dawson et al. (2003) also found out that as children grew older, they still had challenges. As an example, preschool children of depressed mothers were at increased risk of having behavior problems and if not treated it could become worse s they grew older. In part of this study, they also examined the EEGs of infants, but they added adults and children to see whether there was something that happened in the brain when any type of emotion was shown. They found that when emotions like joy or interest were shown, the left frontal lobe was most active in all cases, but when negative emotions like sadness are shown, the right frontal lobe was more active (p. 3159). To the researchers this meant that mothers who were depressed would be less likely to reach out to their children during depressed episodes; when they did reach out, they had a tendency to be more aggressive towards their children and were prone to tantrums (p. 3159). Styles of interaction with their children were also different between depressed mothers and those who were not depressed. Mothers who were depressed showed a negative, withdrawn style of interaction and they tended to interact less frequently with their children. Mothers who were not depressed, had a more intrusive style of interacting; unfortunately "intrusive style" was not defined in the article. This researcher wondered throughout the reading of this information whether depression could be affecting children in the womb. If a mother is depressed while she is having her child, then could it mean that she is passing along her "depressed" genes in some way? I would be interested to see whether there has been research in this area. Several factors were considered to be important in this study that the researchers say may or may not contribute to a childs acting out behavior when mothers were depressed. These factors included "high family stress, marital conflict, family conflict, and lack of maternal social support" (p. 1159). In looking at these factors, I would venture to say that family stress and marital conflict may be two factors that were important because the feelings of infants and children can be influenced by how the mother or primary care-giver is feeling. As an example, some of the studies that have been done with military families have stated that families where one parent is deployed for a long period of time, and the remaining spouse has varying emotions, the younger children can respond to the emotions of that remaining parent. In other words, if a mother is feeling depressed and upset, a child may feel this emotion in themselves and act out by reverting to behavior that is not typical of them. I would also think that the lack of maternal social support could make a child withdrawn and unsure of themselves. Some of the attachment literature has talked about the necessity of a secure attachment with the primary care-giver. If this individual is depressed, having marital conflicts, family conflicts and high family stress, they may not be able to give as much to their child as necessary. The researcher found that another risk factor can be the timing of the mothers depression and the length of time that she stays in a depressive episode. In many cases if a mother is chronically depressed, her children may exhibit hostile behaviors; this was shown to be true in ages for to six. It would seem that children will react to the lack of care giving as much as they will to react to good parenting skills. It would be interesting to see whether there is a difference between caregivers who are depressed for the short term and how that affects their children. Another question that came to mind while reading these studies was how psychotherapy and medication would work for mothers who were depressed and how this would assist them with their children. It would seem that if they felt less depressed, they may be able to interact with their children more overtime and this would create a more secure bond. Neither study showed whether the mothers were on medication or receiving treatment. The study by Dawson et al. (2003) was actually a follow-up study to one that was done previously that involved preschool children. They found similar results in that one. Another area that was researched was to observe mothers when they were not participating in the psychophysiological studies. During this time, the observations were done using video taping during "structured and unstructured" (p. 1164) activities inside a playroom. The researchers wanted to observe the parents and their children in a space where they felt comfortable. There were several activities that were created to make sure mothers would interact with their children. The observers then studied the risk factors that they had already identified in the studies that were conducted in this article. Again, they measured the levels of EEG activity. The researchers realized that although the children of depressed mothers were attentive during EEG activity in similar ways as those children whose mothers were not depressed, those with depressed mothers were less attentive in the environment, and their children had a "lower cortical activation" (p. 1172). These children also had a higher level of internalizing their emotions and therefore had more behavior problems. It would seem that this would be important information towards assisting children in creating a more positive space Dawson et al. (2003) also suggested that more study should be done to examine the relationship between "a typical patterns of EEG and direct neurocognitive measures of attention" (p. 1172). This seemed to be an interesting area because it would take the study to a deeper level I would think. Depression has always been a topic that was of interest in the literature and for me it was important to understand how depression worked with infants. Before the study, I would not have thought about the impact that this could have on the brain and how it might actually affect a child. This is why it would be interesting to see whether it impacts the child in utero. I can definitely see room for more research in several areas. References Dawson, G., Panigiotides, H., Klinger, L. and Spieker, S. (1997). Infants of depressed and nondepressed mothers exhibit differences in frontal brain electrical activity during the expression of negative emotions. Developmental Psychology, 33 (4). 650-656. Dawson, G., Ashman, S.B., Panagiotides, H., Hessl, D., Self, J., Yamada, E., and Embry, L. (2003). Preschool outcomes of children of depressed mothers: role of maternal behavior, contextual risk, and children’s brain activity Child Development, 74 (4). 1158–1175. Read More