Maternal depression increases infant risk of diarrhoeal illness - a cohort study

Atif Rahman ^1*, James E.G. Bunn ², Hermione Lovel ¹ and Francis Creed ¹

¹ University of Manchester, United Kingdom
² Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: atif.rahman{at}ntlworld.com.

Accepted 29 August 2006

Abstract

Aims: To examine the associations between postnatal depression in mothers and diarrhoeal illness in their infants in the first year of life in a low-income country.

Methods: Using a prospective cohort design, 265 infants 130 of mothers having ICD-10 Depressive Episode at 3 months postnatal and 135 of psychologically-well mothers) living in rural Rawalpindi, Pakistan, were followed up for one year. Frequency of diarrhoeal episodes was measured fortnightly by health workers using a standard questionnaire.

Results: Infants of depressed mothers had significantly more diarrhoeal episodes per year than controls (mean 5.5 vs 4.0; 95% CI 0.9 to 2.0). The relative risk of having 5 or more diarrhoeal episodes per year in infants of depressed mothers was 2.3 (95% CI 1.6 ¡C 3.1). The association remained significant after adjustment for other risk factors by multivariate analysis.

Conclusions: Maternal depression is associated with infant diarrhoeal morbidity in a low-income community setting. It is independent of the effects of known factors such as undernutrition, socioeconomic status, and parental education. Preventive child health programmes targeting mothers must consider their mental health.

Keywords: child care, diarrhoea, maternal health, mental health, postnatal depression

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

A brief digest of the January issue
Arch. Dis. Child. 2007 92: e1. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Almond, P. (2009). Postnatal depression: A global public health perspective. The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health 129: 221-227 [Abstract]  
• Black, M. M, Baqui, A. H, Zaman, K, Arifeen, S. E., Black, R. E (2009). Maternal depressive symptoms and infant growth in rural Bangladesh. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 89: 951S-957S [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Engle, P. L (2009). Maternal mental health: program and policy implications. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 89: 963S-966S [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Vesga-Lopez, O., Blanco, C., Keyes, K., Olfson, M., Grant, B. F., Hasin, D. S. (2008). Psychiatric Disorders in Pregnant and Postpartum Women in the United States. Arch Gen Psychiatry 65: 805-815 [Abstract] [Full Text]