Mother's mental health during pregnancy and appropriate treatment influence the child's language development. Explaining this concept, a study found treating maternal depression with certain antidepressants helping the process of language development in babies.
For proving the link, Prof. Janet Werker and colleagues followed three groups of mothers and found treating maternal depression with serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs) speeding up the children's ability to regulate the sounds and sights of their native language. On the other hand, maternal depression untreated by SRIs was found delaying the process.
"This study is among the first to show how maternal depression and its treatment can change the timing of language development in babies," Werker from University of British Columbia's Dept. of Psychology and senior author of the study, said in a news release. "At this point, we do not know if accelerating or delaying these milestones in development has lasting consequences on later language acquisition, or if alternate developmental pathways exist. We aim to explore these and other important questions in future studies."
Of the three groups, one group included women without any symptoms of depression, one treated for depression with SRIs and the last group experiencing depression, but not taking any antidepressants.
Through measuring the heart rates of unborn babies at 36 weeks of gestational age, the researchers examined their response to languages.
Later at six and 10 months of age, the researchers examined the changes in heart rate and eye movement of the babies to sounds and video images.
"The findings highlight the importance of environmental factors on infant development and put us in a better position to support not only optimal language development in children but also maternal well-being," said, Werker. "We also hope to explore more classes of antidepressants to determine if they have similar or different impacts on early childhood development."
Depression is one of the serious problems faced by one in every five pregnant women. The mental position can lead to poor weight gain, preeclampsia, premature labor and trouble in bonding with the newborn.
"These findings once again remind us that poor mental health during pregnancy is a major public health issue for mothers and their infants," co-author Dr. Tim Oberlander, said. "Non-treatment is never an option. While some infants might be at risk, others may benefit from mother's treatment with an antidepressant during their pregnancy. At this stage we are just not sure why some but not all infants are affected in the same way. It is really important that pregnant women discuss all treatment options with their physicians or midwives."
Findings of the study have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
