Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-5xszh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T12:46:18.232Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Infants of depressed mothers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2008

Tiffany Field*
Affiliation:
Mailman Center for Child Development, University of Miami Medical School
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Tiffany Field, Touch Research Institute, University of Miami School of Medicine, PO Box 016820, Miami, FL 33101.

Abstract

Literature is reviewed demonstrating the impact of maternal depression on early infant interactions and development. Infants of depressed mothers (a) develop a depressed mood style as early as 3 months; (b) this mood generalizes to interactions with nondepressed women; (c) it persists over the first year if the mother's depression persists; and (d) it affects growth and Bayley developmental scores by the end of the first year. Other data are reviewed on individual differences including maternal depression styles of withdrawal and intrusion, negative behavior matching, and distorted perceptions of behavior. Finally, genetic, intrauterine, and extrauterine environment effects are discussed and interventions are suggested for altering the mother's depressed behavior and distorted perceptions. The review concludes that a developmental psychopathology perspective is needed to better understand the development of early depression.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agras, W. S. (1983). Medical uses of relaxation training. Paper presented at Grand Rounds, University of Wisconsin, Department of Psychiatry, Madison.Google Scholar
Auckett, A. D. (1981). Baby massage. New York: Newmarket Press.Google Scholar
Ax, A. A. (1964). Goals and methods of psychophysiology. Psychophysiology, 1, 825.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beck, A. T. (1976). Cognitive therapy and emotional disorders. New York: International Universities Press.Google Scholar
Beebe, B., Hertsman, L., Carson, B., Dolins, M., Zigman, A., Rosenweig, H., Faughey, K., & Korman, M. (1982). Rhythmic communication in the mother-infant dyad. In Davis, M. (Ed.), Interaction rhythms: Periodicity in communicative behavior (pp. 79100). New York: Human Sciences.Google Scholar
Beebe, B., Jaffe, J., Feldstein, S., Mays, K., & Alson, D. (1985). Interpersonal timing: The application of an adult dialogue model to mother-infant vocal kinesic interactions. In Field, T. & Fox, N. (Eds.), Social perception in infants (pp. 217248). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Benson, H., Kotch, J. B., Crassweller, R. D., & Greenwood, M. M. (1977). Historical and clinical considerations of the relaxation response. American Scientist, 65, 441445.Google ScholarPubMed
Brazelton, T. B., Koslowski, B., & Main, M. (1974). The origins of reciprocity: The early mother-infant interaction. In Lewis, M. & Rosenblum, L. A. (Eds.), The effects of the infant on its caregiver (pp. 4976). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Chapple, E. D. (1970). Culture and biological man: Explorations in behavioral anthropology. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D. (1987). Developmental psychopathology in infancy. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55, 837845.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, D. M. (1983). On the induction of depressed mood in the laboratory: Evaluation and comparison of the Velten and musical procedures. Behavioral Research Therapy, 5, 2749.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, G. N., & Seifer, R. (1983). Facilitating mother-infant communication: A treatment model for high-risk and developmentally delayed infants. Infant Mental Health Journal, 4, 6782.3.0.CO;2-I>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohn, J. F., Matias, R., Tronick, E. Z., Connell, D., & Lyons-Ruth, K. (1986). Face-to-face interactions of depressed mothers and their infants. In Tronick, E. Z. & Field, T. (Eds.), Maternal depression and infant disturbance (pp. 3145). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Cohn, J. F., & Tronick, E. Z. (1983). Three-month-old infants' reaction to simulated maternal depression. Child Development, 54, 185193.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohn, J. F., & Tronick, E. Z. (1988). Mother-infant face-to-face interaction: Influence is bidirectional and unrelated to periodic cycles in either partner's behavior. Developmental Psychology, 24, 386392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, R., Jaffe, B. I., Lamprey, J. M., Botha, M., Shives, R., Baker, S., & Seftel, H. C. (1985). Hormonal and biochemical responses to TM. Postgraduate Medical Journal, 61, 301304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coyne, J. C., & Gottlib, I. H. (1983). The role of cognition in depression: A critical review. Psychological Bulletin, 94, 472505.Google Scholar
Davidson, D., Winchester, T., Taylor, B., Alderman, E., & Ingels, W. (1979). Effects of relaxation therapy on cardiac performance and sympathetic activity in patients with organic heart disease. Psychosomatic Medicine, 41, 303308.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
DeCasper, A. J., & Fifer, W. P. (1980). Of human bonding: Newborns prefer their mother's voices. Science, 210, 11741176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Estroff, T. W., Herrera, C., Gaines, R., Shaffer, D., Gould, M., & Green, A. (1984). Maternal psychopathology and perception of child behavior in psychiatrically referred and child maltreatment families. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 23, 649652.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fergusson, D. M., Horwood, L. J., Gretten, M. E., & Shannon, F. T. (1985). Family life events, maternal depression, and maternal and teacher descriptions of child behavior. Pediatrics, 75, 3035.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Field, T. (1977). Effects of early separation, interactive deficits, and experimental manipulations on infant-mother face-to-face interaction. Child Development, 48, 763771.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, T. (1984). Early interactions between infants and their postpartum depressed mothers. Infant Behavior and Development, 7, 527532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, T. (1985). Attachment as psychobiological attunement: Being on the same wavelength. In Reite, M. & Field, T. (Eds.), Psychobiology of attachment (pp. 415450). New York: Academic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, T. (1986). Models forreactive and chronic depression. In Tronick, E. & Field, T. (Eds.), Maternal depression and infant disturbance (pp. 4760). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Field, T. (1991). Psychobiological attunement in close relationships. In Lerner, R., Featherman, D. L., & Perlmutter, M. (Eds.), Life-span development and behavior. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Field, T., Cohen, D., & Garcia, R. (1984). Mother-stranger face discrimination by newborns. Infant Behavior and Development, 7, 1926.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, T., Healy, B., Goldstein, S., & Guthertz, M. (1990). Behavior state matching in mother-infant interactions of nondepressed versus depressed mother-infant dyads. Developmental Psychology, 26, 714.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, T., Healy, B., Goldstein, S., Perry, S., Bendell, D., Schanberg, S., Zimmerman, E. A., & Kuhn, C. (1988). Infants of depressed mothers show “depressed” behavior even with nondepressed adults. Child Development, 59, 15691579.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Field, T., Healy, B., & LeBlanc, W. (1989). Sharing and synchrony of behavior states and heart rate in nondepressed versus depressed mother-infant interactions. Infant Behavior and Development, 12, 357376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, T., Morrow, C., & Adlestein, D. (1991). Depressed mothers' attributions of their own and their infants' behaviors. Infant Behavior and Development.Google Scholar
Field, T., Morrow, C., Healy, B., Foster, T., Adlestein, D., & Goldstein, S. (1991). Mothers with zero Beck depression scores act more depressed with their infants. Development and Psychopathology, 3, 253262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, T.Morrow, C., Valdeon, C., Larson, S., Kuhn, C., & Schanberg, S. (1992). Massage reduces anxiety in child and adolescent psychiatric patients. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Field, T., & Pawlby, S. (1980). Early face-to-face interactions of British and American working and middle-class mother-infant dyads. Child Development, 51, 250253.Google Scholar
Field, T., Sandberg, D., Garcia, R., Vega-Lahr, N., Goldstein, S., & Guy, L. (1985). Prenatal problems, postpartum depression, and early mother-infant interactions. Developmental Psychology, 12, 11521156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, T., Schanberg, S. M., Scafidi, F., Bauer, C. R., Vega-Lahr, N., Garcia, R., Nystrom, J., & Kuhn, C. M. (1986). Tactile/kinesthetic stimulation effects on preterm neonates. Pediatrics, 77(5), 654658.Google Scholar
Field, T., Vega-Lahr, N., Scafidi, F., & Goldstein, S. (1986). Effects of maternal unavailability on mother-infant interactions. Infant Behavior and Development, 9, 473478.Google Scholar
Field, T., Widmayer, S., Stringer, S., & Ignatoff, E. (1980). Teenage, lower-class black mothers and their preterm infants: An intervention and developmental follow-up. Child Development, 51, 426436.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Field, T., Woodson, R., Greenberg, R., & Cohen, D. (1982). Discrimination and imitation of facial expressions by neonates. Science, 218, 179181.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fox, N. A., & Davidson, R. J. (1984). Hemispheric substrates of affect: A developmental model. In Fox, N. A. & Davidson, R. J. (Eds.), The psychobiology of affective development (pp. 353382). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Fox, C. R., Gelfand, D. M., & Smith, T. W. (in press). Women's depressed affect, attention focus, and perception of infant cues.Google Scholar
Gottman, J. M. (1979). Marital interaction: Experimental investigation. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Gottman, J. M., & Ringland, J. T. (1981). The analysis of dominance and bidirectionality in social development. Child Development, 52, 393412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gottman, J. M., Rose, F. T., & Mettetal, G. (1982). Time-series analysis of social interaction data. In Field, T. & Fogel, A. (Eds.), Emotion and early interaction (pp. 267290). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hofer, M. (1984). Relationships as regulators: A psychobiologic perspective on bereavement. Psycho-somatic Medicine, 46, 183197.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hosmand, L., Helmes, E., Kazarian, S., & Tekatch, G. (1985). Evaluation of a relaxation training program under medical and non-medical conditions. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 41, 2329.Google Scholar
Iberall, A. S., & McCulloch, W. S. (1969). The organizing principle of complex living systems. Journal of Basic Engineering, 91, 290294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Izard, C. E. (1980). A system for identifying affect expression by holistic judgments (AFFEX). Newark, DE: Instructional Resources Center.Google Scholar
Jevning, R., Wilson, A. E., Van Derlann, E., & Levine, S. (1977). Plasma prolactin and cortisol during transcendental meditation technique. Scientific Research on the Transcendental Meditation Programme, 1, 143145.Google Scholar
Kaplan, H. B., & Bloom, S. W. (1960). The use of sociological and social-psychological concepts in physiological research: A review of selected experimental studies. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 131, 128134.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaplan, H. B., Burch, N. R., & Bloom, S. W. (1964). Physiological covariation and sociometric relationships in small peer groups. In Liederman, P. H. & Shapiro, D. (Eds.), Psychobiological approaches to social behavior (pp. 111123). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, C., Schanberg, S., Field, T., Symanski, R., Zimmerman, E., Scafidi, F., & Roberts, J. (1991). Tactile/kinesthetic stimulation effects on sympathetic and adrenocortical function in preterm infants. Journal of Pediatrics, 119, 439440.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lester, B., Hoffman, J., & Brazelton, T. B. (1985). The rhythmic structure of mother-infant interaction in term and preterm infants. Child Development, 56, 1527.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levenson, R. W., & Gottman, J. M. (1985). Physiological and affective predictors of changes in relationship satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 8594.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lyons-Ruth, K., Zoll, D., Connell, D., & Grunebaum, H. U. (1986). The depressed mother and her one-year-old infant: Environment, interaction, attachment and infant development. In Tronick, E. & Field, T. (Eds.), Maternal depression and infant disturbance (pp. 6183). New York: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Matthews, A. M., & Gelder, M. G. (1969). Psychophysiological investigations of brief relaxation training. Journal of Psychosomatics, 13, 112.Google Scholar
McClean, P. D., & Hakistian, R. (1979). Clinical depression: Comparative efficacy of outpatient treatments. Journal of Clinical & Consulting Psychiatry, 47, 818836.Google Scholar
Meltzoff, A. N., & Moore, M. K. (1977). Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates. Science, 198, 7578.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O'Hara, M. W., Neunaber, D. J., & Zekoski, E. M. (1984). Prospective study of postpartum depression: Prevalence, course, and predictive factors. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 93, 158171.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pickens, J., & Field, T. (1992). Unpublished data.Google Scholar
Platania-Solazzo, A., Field, T., Blank, J., Seligman, F., Kuhn, C., & Schanberg, S. (1992). Relaxation therapy reduces anxiety in child/adolescent psychiatry patients. European Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.Google Scholar
Radke-Yarrow, M., Cummings, E. M., Kuczynski, L., & Chapman, M. (1985). Patterns of attachment in two- and three-year-olds in normal families and families with parental depression. Child Development, 56, 884893.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reynolds, W., & Coats, K. (1986). A comparison of cognitive-behavioral therapy and relaxation training for treatment of depression in adolescents. Journal of Clinical & Consulting Psychiatry, 54, 653660.Google Scholar
Richters, J., & Pellegrini, D. (1989). Depressed mothers' judgments about their children: An examination of the depression-distortion hypothesis. Child Development, 60, 10681075.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rickard, K. M., Forehand, R., Wells, K. C., Griest, D. L., & McMahon, R. J. (1981). Factors in the referral of children for behavioral treatment: A comparison of mothers of clinic-referred deviant, clinic-referred nondeviant and non-clinic children. Behavior Research and Therapy, 19, 201205.Google Scholar
Sameroff, A. V., & Seifer, R. (1983). Familial risk and child competence. Child Development, 54, 12541268.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sander, L. W. (1969). The longitudinal course of early mother-infant interaction: Cross-case comparisons in a sample of mother-child pairs. In Foss, B. (Ed.), Determinants of infant behavior (pp. 1419). London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Schneider, , Vimala, (1982). Infant massage. Toronto: Bantam Books.Google Scholar
Stern, D., Beebe, B., Jaffe, J., & Bennett, S. (1977). The infant's stimulus world during social interaction: A study of caregiver behaviors with particular reference to repetition and timing. In Shaffer, H. R. (Ed.), Studies in mother-infant interaction (pp. 177203). New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Stern, D. N. (1974). Mother and infant at play. In Lewis, M. & Rosenblum, L. A. (Eds.), The effect of the infant on its caregiver (pp. 187214). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Stratton, P. (1982). Rhythmic functions in the newborn. In Stratton, P. (Ed.), The psychobiology of the human newborn (pp. 119146). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Trevarthen, C. (1974). Conversations with a 2-month-old. New Scientist, May, 230235.Google Scholar
Tronick, E., Als, H., Adamson, L., Wise, S., & Brazelton, T. B. (1977). The infant's response to entrapment between contradictory messages in face-to-face interaction. Journal of Child Psychiatry, 17, 113.Google Scholar
Tronick, E., Als, H., & Brazelton, T. B. (1980). Monadic phases: A structural descriptive analysis of infant-mother face-to-face interaction. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly of Behavior and Development, 26, 324.Google Scholar
Tronick, E., & Gianino, A. F. Jr. (1986). The transmission of maternal disturbance to the infant. In Tronick, E. & Field, T. (Eds.), Maternal depression and infant disturbance (pp. 513). New York: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Webster-Stratton, C., & Hammond, M. (1988). Maternal depression and its relationship to life stress, perceptions of child behavior problems, parenting behaviors, and child conduct problems. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 16, 299315.Google Scholar
Whiffen, V. E., & Gottlib, I. M. (1989). Infants of postpartum depressed mothers: Temperament and cognitive status. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 98, 274279.Google Scholar
Wolff, P. H. (1967). The role of biological rhythms in early psychological development. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 31, 197218.Google Scholar
Zahn-Waxler, C., Cummings, E. M., McKnew, D. H., & Radke-Yarrow, M. (1984). Problem behaviors and peer interactions of young children with a manic-depressive parent. American Journal of Psychiatry, 141, 236240.Google ScholarPubMed
Zuckerman, B., Als, H., Bauchner, H., Parker, S., & Cabral, H. (1990). Maternal depressive symptoms during pregnancy, and newborn irritability. Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 11, 190194.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed