Maternal Depression And Its Association With Insecurely Attached Infants; A Review Of The Research

12 Pages 3103 Words

ssion approximately twice the rate of men. In the United States, 12 million women experience depression every year. Overall, one out of eight women will develop depression during their lifetime. This study would be important to help all these women who suffer from depression because this subject matter affects a significantly large population. Major depression often occurs in the mid to late 20's, occurring most frequently in women 25 - 44 years of age. These ages are generally the ages that women are bearing children and if they are the most at risk for depression, then their children are at risk of insecure attachment and this is a problem that needs to be focused on.

Goodman and Gotlib (1999) did a study on a subject that has had little research but that is important to finding the association between maternal depression and infant attachment. This article studies mechanisms that can explain the transmission of risk for certain behaviors from mothers to their children. These four mechanisms are identified as heritability of
depression; innate dysfunctional neuroregulatory mechanisms; exposure to
negative maternal cognitions, behaviors, and affect; and the stressful
context of the children's lives. An insecurely attached infant cannot
handle when its mother leaves because the baby does not trust that she
will come back. This lack of trust or bond means they are insecurely
attached and can lead to the baby being susceptible, later on, to depression
his/herself. Children of depressed mothers have shown to react negatively
to stress and there’s a delay in their ability to self regulate. Insecure
attachment in infants has been consistently associated with unresponsive,

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rejecting, and insensitive parenting which may be characteristics of
depressed mothers (Goodman and Gotlib 1999).
Connell & Goodman (2002) reviewed research that showed ...