Children of depressed mothers

by Marian Radke-Yarrow

"Children of Depressed Mothers provides a developmental perspective on the psychopathology of offspring of depressed mothers. A primary theme is the interplay of factors in the child (developmental stage, gender, temperament) and environment (depressed mother's symptomatic behavior and family functioning) as contributors to psychiatric and psychosocial problems in offspring. Children and their families are followed from toddlerhood to the threshold of adulthood. The emergence and evolution of problems differ by mother's diagnosis, whether unipolar or bipolar depressed or well. Configurations of variables in the individual child are identified that in combination, create diverse processes that put offspring at risk for specific problems. Early depressed mother-child relationships are strongly influential. Specific affective and temperament qualities of mother and child act reciprocally, increasing risk. The longitudinal data show the nature of the connectedness of early experience to on