In an article from the Archives of Diseases in Children 2006 Feb 17; Mothers' postpartum psychological adjustment and infantile colic, (Akman I, Kuscu K, Ozdemir N, Yurdakul Z, Solakoglu M, Orhan L, Karabekiroglu A, Ozek E.) , they examined the relationship between postpartum depression and colic in babies.
The results showed a significant association between the two:
The average EPDS (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale) of the mothers whose infants had infantile colic higher than that of the mothers of infants without colic. Furthermore....
"Among infants with infantile colic, 62.5% had mothers who had insecure attachment style whereas only 31.1% of mothers had insecure attachment when the infant did not have infantile colic."
I suppose many women reading this already knew that!
(pic from calm-your-screaming-baby.com)
The results showed a significant association between the two:
The average EPDS (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale) of the mothers whose infants had infantile colic higher than that of the mothers of infants without colic. Furthermore....
"Among infants with infantile colic, 62.5% had mothers who had insecure attachment style whereas only 31.1% of mothers had insecure attachment when the infant did not have infantile colic."
I suppose many women reading this already knew that!
(pic from calm-your-screaming-baby.com)
This is very interesting. I did some preliminary research in grad school about risk factors and PPD using the EPDS 6 weeks and 6 months postpartum. By far, the factor that women with an EPDS score of 12+ had in common was that they perceived their babies to be of a "difficult" temperament.
ReplyDeleteOf course, you have to consider the whole "chicken or the egg" factor. Thanks for the info!
Hi Stacey,
ReplyDeleteYes, you are quite right about the chicken/egg factor, for sure. In any case, it is always nice to get research to validate what we've seen anecdotally in practice for so long, don't you think?