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I have always maintained women who suffer from depression should not be having children...

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/08/2...ssion.html


Depression signs found in 15% of preschoolers
Last Updated: Saturday, August 29, 2009 | 12:15 AM ET
CBC News

Infants and preschoolers often appear to have a carefree life but a study suggests almost 15 per cent may have high levels of depression and anxiety.

In the five-year study of 1,758 children born in Quebec and their mothers, 15 per cent of preschoolers suffered from atypically high levels of depression and anxiety, researchers reported in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

Feelings of depression and anxiety are a normal part of a child's develoment that increase over the preschool years, the researchers said. It's abnormally high levels of depression and anxiety that are of concern.

"We found that children with difficult temperaments and maternal depression were the most important risk factors. These risk factors can be helped by interventions," said study author Sylvana Côté, a professor at the University of Montreal's department of social and preventive medicine.

The signs can be spotted as early as the first year of life, the researchers found.

'Difficult temperament at five months was the most important predictor of depression and anxiety in the children.'— Sylvana Côté, study author

For the study, mothers were interviewed about whether the child was nervous, high strung or tense, fearful or anxious, worried, less happy than other children or had difficulty having fun. The questions are considered a reliable way of determining whether children are at risk for depression and anxiety.

Infant temperament and a mother's history of depression were important predictors of atypically high depressive and anxiety problems during preschool years, the researchers found, after controlling for low education and maternal antisocial behaviour.
Support for Mom

Supporting mothers who are depressed or have infants with difficult temperaments through cognitive behaviour or talk therapy and parenting training could help, Côté said.

While children who are hyperactive always attract attention, those with high levels of depression and anxiety may be discreet and quiet. People should be aware of these signs and symptoms for children who may be at high risk, she suggested.

Child psychiatrists have suggested teaching coping strategies to help older children showing anxiety. But even the youngest children can be taught how to express and deal with their emotions better, Côté said.

One limitation of the study is that genetics were not taken into account.

Researchers from the Laval University and McGill University, as well as Inserm in France, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and University College Dublin in Ireland also helped to conduct the study.

The study was funded by Quebec's ministry of health, the Fond québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center and the University of Montreal.

I think children cause depression in women who were perfectly happy without them, and then it becomes a vicious cycle.

My mother suffers from depression and has been suffering from it for a very, very long time. However, she was not diagnosed until well after my brother and I were born.

I have no idea if knowing ahead of time would have changed her mind about having children because I'm not sure how badly she wanted children.

I often worry if I will suffer like she is suffering now. I used to take meds for depression when I was in my late teens / early twenties but have not been taking any for well over twenty years now. As I get older however, I wonder if it will come back.

In an ideal world I agree that crippling genetic conditions should not be passed on to the next generation, but in reality it is hard to know where that limit should be and how we would ever enforce it. For example I have a genetic condition that limits my ability to drive a vehicle but that is effectively my only real limit (I can't see perfectly, but I can function extremely well) and I believe that I contribute well to this world. One could argue that I need never been born because I wouldn't have had an impact on the environment, but beyond that suggestion... I am considered to be a highly productive member of society. So how about children of those with mental illness?

One of the problems is mentioned right at the end of the article... is it a genetic or phenotypic for those children to display signs of depression? In other words... do the children act depressed because they are genetically disposed to it, or because their parents act a particular way? In all honesty, it is always both - the fight between nature vs nurture is a sliding scale of percentages. I would be interested in seeing twin studies (twins separated at birth, so the genetics are the same but their childhood environments are different) and similar work to see how much of that can be attributed to behaviour, and how much that can be remedied.

The other problems is that mental illness often shows up after children are born, as it often happens in the late 20s and early 30s. So technically your comment is followed: 'Women who are suffering from depression are rarely having children'. This is easier to deal with these days as people are having children later in life, but not always. My mother developed severe depression in her 40s, and that's too late for her to have decided not to have me! Plus my grandmother has no signs of depression, so family history is not a good indication.

Until Huntington's is removed from the genetic pool... the suggestion that mental illness can and should be removed from the genetic pool is a complete non-starter from a realistic point of view.

And plenty of people who are childfree have depression, anyway. Both mine and BJ's is menopause-related, but we have had it, and will be on anti-depressants forever. Now, what if we had had children? Might it have menifested earlier and for different reasons?

My grandmother suffered from depression to the point where she hallucinated. She was in and out of hospitals in an era where people really had no clue what to do about it. She became an alcoholic and put a bullet in her brain when I was about 10.

She passed on all her anxiety and insanity to my mother, who in turn, did everything she could to make me as miserable as she was. When my grandmother committed suicide, my mother told me that there would now be a high chance that she would kill herself too, so I'd better be good so she wouldn't do it. What do you think hearing that at age 10 did to me? I had no father, no siblings, so she was It in terms of parenting and everything. I already was a good kid, and I worried constantly about every single thing, so then she put the massive weight of keeping her from killing herself on my shoulders and my life was a horror.

In high school I ended up being a cutter, her physical abuse stopped when I reached a certain age, but the verbal abuse went on and on and on. In college I went to counseling, and I discovered Al-Anon and ACoA, so I was saved. I stopped cutting, and told her I was done with her bullshit and abuse, which made her tell me that I obviously didn't love her enough (to put up with it) and I was a bad person after all and she didn't deserve me.

She made me hate myself basically all my life, it only got a little better in recent years. She died suddenly of a heart attack in 1995 when she was 53 and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm glad I'll never pass her bullshit and selfishness and insanity on to another victim. It's not the main reason I'm CF, but it's one of the many reasons.

To this day I won't forgive her, and I'm deeply bitter about having a mother who was such a horrible person and having absolutely no one else to turn to. After she died I tried to tell my aunt, her sister, everything, but she stopped me and basically said things that suggested I'm making it all up. How the fuck would she know? She moved away two years before I was born and never came back. I still suffer from bouts of terrible depression and self-loathing on and off each year, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

eslbee Wrote:And plenty of people who are childfree have depression, anyway. Both mine and BJ's is menopause-related, but we have had it, and will be on anti-depressants forever. Now, what if we had had children? Might it have menifested earlier and for different reasons?

I am childfree and have depression. I would say, as of now, it's mild to non-existant; so it's nothing to be concerned about. From time to time I can be hit with depression severely.

I would say it was my father that had depression a lot more than my mother did. When a father is very depressed, that can effect the children. Also, depression can effect those around you in a way that you would not realize.

Anastasia: thanks for mentioning your relief about your mom dying. I feel the same way about my mom situation,she was not insane, but it's kind of taboo to admit we are better off without them. Both me and my dad are more mentally healthy now.

Anastasia, I thought of you when I posted this. I know you've told us about the horrorshow that was the childhood of being raised in a mentally ill home... this sort of sums up what you and I both know.

Even if it isn't the extreme of what you've described, but just a run-of-the-mill high anxiety mother or occasionally depressed (as my mother was) I can tell you that OF COURSE it's going to rub off on the kids. WTF? This is not rocket science. If you have to tiptoe around someone depressed or anxious as a child, it's going to affect you emotionally and probably for life. In Slovak (my grandparent's language) I don't think there was a word for it, but the kind of Slovacicized the english "nerves" and said "Nair-vee" to describe what was wrong with various aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. "Nair-vee" was bad nerves, otherwise known as high anxiety. We were all supposed to behave appropriately around such people, but there were more of them than there were normal people.

Again, like Anastasia, it's not the main reason I don't have kids, but it's a HUGE contributing factor. I think parents who KNOW the odds are stacked against them and choose to bring kids into a mentally ill home with the hope that things will get better or can't be as bad as when they were kids or whatever... well. You know what I think about those parents. Ahem.

I agree with you there. I suppose that's what I'm thinking... that if you know that you have a mental illness and it manifests itself physically (I have friends who take medications for it, and you wouldn't know they were ever ill) then you shouldn't have children, especially if you think that it will improve.

As a male with mental issues, I must agree with the idea that I shouldn't have children. Even if it isn't genetic, the idea of having kids is just wrong because I could never care for them properly. Even a cat is beyond my means which saddens me because I love kitties but it wouldn't be fair to the animal. Why people can't understand this is beyond me.

Jo Wrote:I have always maintained women who suffer from depression should not be having children...

ITA. I think it's unconscionable to have children if you are clinically depressed. Not only are you passing it on genetically, but you are subjecting them to a life that revolves around your moods, temper tantrums, breakdowns, etc.

I'm a great example of what the study was talking about. I think part of the reason my mom and I grew apart when I was young was because her depression worsened over time and strained the weak relationship we had. I also developed depression. I was diagnosed later in life, but I believe I have struggled with it ever since I was a really young child. I can't remember my mom being particularly nurturing or supportive, which may have helped me develop the coping skills I am trying to acquire now so I can heal once and for all.