Academic Unit of Psychiatry, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
Arch Womens Ment Health. 2012 Apr;15(2):95-105. doi: 10.1007/s00737-012-0269-z. Epub 2012 Mar 1.
A mother's response towards her infant's distress is important for the mother-infant relationship and infant development. There is evidence that maternal responses are impaired in depressed mothers. Further understanding of how depression disrupts maternal responses is important to direct treatment strategies. There is evidence that maternal responses develop during pregnancy. Further understanding of the relationship between depression and maternal responses during pregnancy is therefore important. We have previously found that depression during pregnancy is associated with reduced attentional engagement with infant distress but is unclear whether this is an insensitive or avoidance response. In the current study, we investigated the impact of anhedonic symptoms of depression on pregnant women's autonomic response towards infant distress. We found that women experiencing anhedonic depressive symptoms during pregnancy had significantly larger systolic blood pressure responses towards infant distress (β, 1.6 mmHg, 95 % CI 0.5 to 2.6, p = 0.004) than non-depressed pregnant women. These results suggest that anhedonic symptoms during pregnancy may be associated with increased sympathetic sensitivity. This suggests that depression is not, at a sympathetic level at least, associated with insensitivity to infant distress and rather depression may be associated with an abnormally sensitive response.
母亲对婴儿痛苦的反应对母婴关系和婴儿发育很重要。有证据表明，抑郁母亲的母性反应受损。进一步了解抑郁如何扰乱母性反应对于指导治疗策略很重要。有证据表明，母性反应在怀孕期间发展。因此，进一步了解怀孕期间抑郁与母性反应之间的关系很重要。我们之前发现，怀孕期间的抑郁与对婴儿痛苦的注意力参与减少有关，但尚不清楚这是一种不敏感还是回避反应。在当前的研究中，我们调查了抑郁的快感缺失症状对孕妇对婴儿痛苦的自主反应的影响。我们发现，在怀孕期间经历快感缺失抑郁症状的女性对婴儿痛苦的收缩压反应明显更大（β，1.6mmHg，95%置信区间 0.5 至 2.6，p=0.004），而非抑郁的孕妇。这些结果表明，怀孕期间的快感缺失症状可能与交感神经敏感性增加有关。这表明，至少在交感神经水平上，抑郁与对婴儿痛苦不敏感无关，而抑郁可能与异常敏感的反应有关。
