The effects of postpartum depression on a child’s development

Abstract

Postpartum depression (PPD) is a type of mood disorder associated with childbirth. It occurs in the period after childbirth affecting approximately 15% of women in industrial societies. Untreated PPD have negative effects on both the infants and the mothers and the society.
A child’s development consists of interplay between the biological, psychological and emotional changes that occur in human beings from birth through the completion of adolescence. This is a continuous process with each child having its own special course of development. This process of development has different stages which are affected by various factors, which could be genetics or environmental. Therefore, due to the impacts of mothers on their children, as they constitute largely the infants’ social environment greatly and influence their experience with the external world, there is need to identify the effects postpartum depression has on a child’s development.
This paper however showed the cognitive, behavioral, emotional, language and motor development, as well as anthropometric consequences of postpartum depression on a child’s development.