Depressed moms make kids prone to behavioural problems, injuries

Washington, Dec 6 (UNI) Keep out of depression for your child's sake -- Young children whose mothers are depressed are more prone to behavioural problems and injuries, according to a reseach.

The researchers from US suggest that maternal depression may increase the risk of behavioural problems in the child, which may in turn boost the risk of injury, the Science Daily reported.

They studied at the impact of maternal depression on children's behaviour and injury rates among 1106 mother and child pairs between 1992 and 1994.

The mothers and their children were all taking part in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, which has been tracking the health of young mothers and their children from birth since 1986.

In total, 94 children, all of whom were under the age of 6, had sustained injuries, sufficient to require medical attention during the study period.

Two thirds of these injuries had happened at home.

Researchers then studied the problem behaviour among children and depressive symptoms among mothers.

The study showed that children whose mothers scored persistently high marks on the depression scales were more than twice as likely to have been injured as those whose mothers had a low rating.

And children whose mothers had a high rating were significantly more likely to have behavioural problems and sustain injuries.

Boys were more at risk of this than girls.

The findings showed that for every one point increase on the depression score, the risk of injury rose by four per cent and the risk of behavioural problems increased by six per cent.

These findings held true after taking account of influential factors, such as household income, educational attainment and health insurance coverage.

UNI