Maternal mental health is a very important factor that can influence children in positive and negative ways. As mentioned in Chapter 4, research shows that stress, anxiety, and depression during pregnancy may affect the neurodevelopment of the fetus, specifically cognitive and socioemotional outcomes (Wu et al., 2022). Furthermore, many studies have linked maternal mental health to language development. For example, a study by Bendini and Dinarte in 2020 found that maternal depression is detrimental to a child’s vocabulary at age 5, though the effects do fade out by age 8 (Bendini & Dinarte, 2020).

Research also suggests that maternal depression has an effect on an infant’s growth. For example, it was demonstrated that an infant’s growth is the most affected during the first year of life, if exposed to maternal depression (Farias-Atunez et al., 2017. Children of depressed mothers not only had a higher chance of being underweight and being stunted in the first year of life, but also their linear growth was affected.

Depression can affect a range of behavioral and physical symptoms in children and mothers including changes in sleep, energy level, appetite, daily behavior, concentration, and self-esteem. Therefore, maternal depression can interfere with a mother’s or caregiver’s ability to bond with their infant, the ability to pick up on cues related to the needs of their infant, the ability to play with their infant, the ability to nurture their infant and so on and so forth. All these factors influence cognitive, language, and physical development and other developmental domains as we will learn in other chapters. Therefore, it is crucial that healthcare professionals closely examine not only the infant, but also the mother during the postpartum period for at least the first year.