High sensitivity and reactivity to behaviors of family members characterizes several forms of psychopathology, including self-inflicted injury (SII). We examined mother-daughter behavioral and psychophysiological reactivity during a conflict discussion using nonlinear dynamics to assess asymmetrical associations within time-series data. Depressed, SII, and control adolescents and their mothers ...

We describe the association between postpartum depression and the quantity and content of infant media use. Households with depressed mothers viewed twice as much television as households with non-depressed mothers did, and depressed mothers appeared to derive comparatively greater pleasure from television viewing. Maternal depression was associated with an increased exposure to child-directed ...

The interactions of 3-month-old infants and their depressed mothers were classified as intrusive, withdrawn or good interactions. Analyses of retrospective data suggested that all depressed groups scored higher on depression (CES-D) and anxiety (STAI) scales and had similarly elevated cortisol, norepinephrine and epinephrine during pregnancy. The depressed mothers and their newborns also had gr...

BACKGROUND Interpersonal stress generation is one mechanism hypothesized to increase risk for the intergenerational transmission of depression. Although there is some evidence of stress generation in offspring of depressed mothers, specific predictors of stress generation in these youth remain unknown. The goal of this study was to examine a peripheral measure of cognitive-affective reactivity ...

INTRODUCTION Our goal was to evaluate the impact of depressed mothers' marital intimacy and attachment security in romantic relationships on children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms. METHOD Forty-six clinically depressed mothers rated attachment security, marital intimacy, and symptoms shown by their children aged 8 to 12. RESULTS Maternal avoidance of closeness predicted increas...

A longitudinal follow-up study of postnatal depression was performed in the years 1995-2000 in the University of Oulu. A volunteer, ramdomly selected group of 187 mothers from maternal wards of the University Hospital of Oulu were studied with different questionnaires in the first postpartum week. Depressive symptoms were re-assessed with Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale four months postpar...

OBJECTIVE Postpartum major depression is a significant public health problem that strikes 15% of new mothers and confers adverse consequences for mothers, children, and families. The neural mechanisms involved in postpartum depression remain unknown, but brain processing of affective stimuli appears to be involved in other affective disorders. The authors examined activity in response to negati...

A growing body of research is demonstrating concordance between mother and child diurnal cortisol production. In the context of maternal history of depression, intergenerational concordance of cortisol production could contribute to hypercortisolemia in children of depressed mothers, which has been shown to increase risk for MDD. The current study is the first to examine concordance in diurnal ...