Kids of 'unhappy' mothers underweight, stunted: study

mother-child Representational image | Reuters

Unhappy mothers would mean unhealthy children. A week after the world celebrated Mother's Day, a new study shows the impact of a mother's mental health on the growth and development of her children.

According to the study, conducted on a large, rural population in Madhya Pradesh, children whose mothers suffered from some degree of depression were found to have a higher chance of being underweight, stunted, and suffering from developmental delays. Maternal depression reduces the mother's ability to take good care of her child, affecting the child's growth and development.

The study, published in the Maternal & Child Nutrition journal this week, looks at a child's physical growth and cognitive development in a rural, “understudied” setting where poverty, malnutrition, and poor mental health co-exist. Authors of the article say few studies have been done on this subject—the correlation between a child's development and maternal depression in low and middle income countries.

In India, only two such studies have been reported, the authors say. One, that documented the “significant association” between post-partum depression and reduced mental development of infants under six months. The second one reported the link between maternal mental health in the first year of life with both growth and development at age one, and the association persisted until age five and eight years.

In this study, a comparison among children whose mothers had either lower or higher levels of “maternal depressive symptoms”, children of mothers with higher depressive symptoms were found to have “lower height‐for‐age, weight‐for‐age, and weight‐for‐height, a higher rate of stunting and underweight, and a higher rate of developmental delay”. Those whose mothers had high symptoms of depression were about two times more likely to be stunted and underweight, and 1.3-1.8 times more likely to have developmental delay. Poor child growth was observed for mothers with the highest level of maternal depressive symptoms, and a low score for child development was observed among mothers who had medium level of symptoms.

The study also shows significant links between higher level of maternal depression and a "poorer home environment, less engagement with children, lower use of health services, and sub-optimal complementary feeding practices".

The authors—from the International Food Policy Research Institute, USA, and The World Bank— argue that the results of their analysis add to the call for “practical interventions” to address depression in mothers. While some of the factors leading to a higher level of maternal depression—higher maternal age, lower education levels, working as farmers, from a tribal community—can not be changed in the short term, others can, authors say. These include lower socio-economic status, and distance from the local anganwadi centres. The authors advocate for cash transfers and providing adequate transport to anganwadi centres to address some of the associated factors for maternal depression. They also advocate for support groups or child care services to help the mothers.

The study was funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

TAGS