The relationships between severity, chronicity, and timing of maternal depressive symptoms and child outcomes were examined in a cohort of 4,953 children. Mothers provided selfreports of depressive symptoms during pregnancy, immediately postpartum, and when the child was 6 months old and 5 years old. At the age 5 follow-up, mothers reported on children's behavior and children completed a receptive vocabulary test. Results suggest that both the severity and the chronicity of maternal depressive symptoms are related to more behavior problems and lower vocabulary scores in children. The interaction of severity and chronicity of maternal depressive symptoms was significantly related to higher levels of child behavior problems. Timing of maternal symptoms was not significantly related to child vocabulary scores, but more recent reports of maternal depressive symptoms were associated with higher rates of child behavior problems.Many studies have documented the association between maternal depression and adverse outcomes in children. Studies with clinical samples of depressed parents, focused primarily on mothers, have shown elevated rates of depression in children as well as anxiety and disruptive behavior disorders (reviewed in Downey & Coyne, 1990;Hammen, 1999). Studies with community samples of women with self-reported symptoms of depression have also shown adverse outcomes in children. These latter studies included infants, toddlers, and children of varying ages, and virtually all measures of the children's affect and behaviors showed evidence of maladaptive reactions to their mothers' dysphoria (reviewed in Downey & Coyne;Gelfand & Teti, 1990).The consistency of detrimental effects across numerous samples and methodologies has doubtless suggested that maternal depressive symptoms invariably have a negative impact on children's behavior. However, most of the studies have been cross-sectional in design, and they provide little information about the nature of maternal depression and how often it leads to problems for children. Depression is extremely heterogeneous in its manifestations, ranging from mild and transitory mood distress that is entirely normal to persisting and severe

Summary This paper introduces the Mater Misericordiae Mothers' Hospital‐University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy, a prospective study of 8556 pregnant women interviewed at their first clinic visit, and subsequently interviewed some days after the birth of the baby and again 6 months later. Additional data were derived from the medical record of the pregnancy and delivery. The study was designed to assess the impact of social, psychological and obstetric factors on pregnancy outcome. We present here details of the study design, sampling, response rates and demographic characteristics of the sample.

Mothers differ systematically from their children when they are reporting their child's behaviour (mental health). The more emotionally impaired the mother, the greater the degree to which she imputes the child to have behaviour problems. Further, female children are attributed to have more internalising behaviours and male children externalising behaviours.

No abstract