Women with depression in pregnancy or a history of depression have decreased quality of mentalization in the speech to their infants.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Our study aims to understand whether depression, either in pregnancy or lifetime, affects cognitive biases (comprising the attentional focus and affective state) and mentalizing features (ability to understand children's internal mental states, thereby detecting and comprehending their behavior and intention), in maternal speech during mother-infant interaction in the first postnatal year.

Methods

We recruited 115 pregnant women (44 healthy, 46 with major depressive disorder [MDD] in pregnancy, and 25 with a history of MDD but healthy pregnancy) at 25 weeks' gestation. Three-minute videos were recorded at 8 weeks and 12 months postnatally for each dyad. Maternal speech was transcribed verbatim and coded for cognitive biases and mentalizing comments using the Paren

SUBMITTER: Rebecchini L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7618043 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature