Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Maternal Depression Affects Teens

Based on recent studies, researchers found that teens with depressed mothers are more likely to battle depression themselves. Researchers found that teen depression is not only linked to genes but it mostly occurs when a teenager is living with or around a mother who is depressed. They also found that teens with depressed fathers do not usually become depressed because of their surroundings but if they do develop depression it is probably due to genes. They said that this is because mothers usually take most of the responsibility for nurturing their children.

When a mother is depressed, it usually negatively affects her parenting skills, she has difficulties interacting with her children, and can cause problems with her marriage if she is married. Researchers say that this may cause problems with their children and can affect how they do in school and how they do socially. This causes the depression to spread from the mother to the child. When a mother is depressed this also causes her children to develop behavioral problems.

When psychologists did a study with depressed moms and began giving them antidepressants and other treatments to aid their depression, there was a noticeable difference in the mothers and teens. Children improved most when their moms responded to treatment within three months. In the study 70 out of 123 mothers improved within a year. When the teen's moms began to come out of their depression so did they and this greatly improved the teen's emotional health. The study proved that mother's changes can greatly improved their kids'mental health and depression.

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by A.M.