Maternal Depressive, Anxious, and Stress Symptoms During Pregnancy Predict Internalizing Problems in Adolescence

Abstract

We found evidence for a prenatal effect, whereby high levels of maternal depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms in early pregnancy uniquely increased the risk of internalizing behavior problems in adolescence.

Maternal Depressive Symptoms During and After Pregnancy and Psychiatric Problems in Children

“…In ethnic background, our sample is more similar to the ALSPAC, which comprises offspring almost entirely of white ethnicity, than it is to the multiethnic Generation R. This offers one possible explanation why our findings differ from the findings in Generation R. Most importantly, however, our study captured depressive symptomatology throughout the entire pregnancy unprecedented by these two and any other previous studies. [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] The multiple, repeated, biweekly measurements in our study indeed reduced measurement error and increased the reliability and internal validity of our findings. Hence, our study offers the most comprehensive view reported so far on the effects of maternal depressive symptoms during pregnancy on child psychiatric problems.…”

“…Despite the fact that we made adjustments for family structure, we lacked data on relationship stress that may contribute to the association between maternal depression and child psychopathology. 8 Moreover, generalizations from our findings cannot be made to psychiatric disorders, as we measured psychiatric problems dimensionally. Because the mothers rated their depressive symptoms after pregnancy concurrently to child problems, shared method variance may have inflated the effect size estimates of the associations found, as mothers with depression may perceive more problems in their children.…”

“…However, maternal depressive symptoms during pregnancy have previously been shown to predict child psychiatric problems, whether these were assessed by parents, teachers, self-reports, or clinical interviews. [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Another limitation is that we had data on paternal depressive symptoms for only a subsample. Furthermore, although we had data on paternal depressive symptoms when the child was 6 months old, we did not have paternal depressive symptoms available when the mother was pregnant.…”

“…[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Yet, it still remains unclear whether maternal depressive symptoms during pregnancy are an independent risk factor for child psychiatric problems. [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] In the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), which is one of the two largest studies that have examined the consequences of maternal depressive symptoms during pregnancy on the offspring, maternal depressive symptoms measured at gestational week 18 or 32 predicted higher risks of attention problems in the offspring in early childhood, 17 and emotional and behavioral problems in pre-puberty. 12 In the Generation R study, the other of the two largest studies, maternal depressive symptoms at gestational week 20 were associated with higher risk of offspring attention problems 17 and internalizing and externalizing problems 18 in early childhood.…”

“…[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Hence, it remains unknown whether some developmental periods during pregnancy are more vulnerable than others to the effects of maternal depressive symptoms, and whether feeling depressed throughout pregnancy is more harmful for the offspring than feeling depressed only for 1 or 2 weeks at one or two arbitrary timepoints. However, since depressive symptoms show high stability, 8,12 disentangling gestationweek-specific or trimester-specific effects of maternal depressive symptoms during pregnancy may prove difficult. It also remains unclear whether maternal depressive symptoms concurrent to rating the child's problems add to, rather than account for, or mediate the effects of prenatal environmental adversities.…”