"Maternal mental health problems pose a huge human, social and economic burden to women, their infants, their families, and society and constitute a major public health challenge."
- Studies of depression and anxiety show their incidence to be approximately 5% in non-pregnant women, approximately 8-10% during pregnancy and highest (13%) in the year following delivery.
- Virtually all women can develop mental disorders during pregnancy and in the first year after delivery, but poverty, migration, extreme stress, exposure to violence (domestic, sexual and gender-based), emergency and conflict situations, natural disasters, and low social support generally increase risks for specific disorders.
- Infants of chronically depressed mothers show less sociability with strangers, fewer facial expressions, smile less, cry more, and are more irritable than infants of normal mothers.
- Children of chronically depressed mothers do not perform as well on thinking and intelligence tests at 18 months of age and this is especially true for boy babies’ speech development.
- Children of depressed mothers are also more distractible, less playful and less social up to age 5.
(World Health Organization)
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