Myers Sarah, Johns Sarah E
School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom.
PeerJ. 2018 Feb 16;6:e4305. doi: 10.7717/peerj.4305. eCollection 2018.
Postnatal depression (PND) is known to be associated with a range of detrimental child and adolescent outcomes, resulting from its disruptive impact on mother-child relationship quality. However, until now little has been known about the impact of PND on the longer-term relationships between mothers and their children, and any intergenerational effects this may have. Mother-child relationship quality is of interest from an evolutionary perspective as it plays a role in the accrual of offspring embodied capital, thus affecting offspring quality and offspring's capacity to subsequently invest in their own children. Relationships with offspring also mediate grandparent-grandchild relations; if PND negatively affects long-term mother-offspring relationship quality, it is also likely to negatively affect grandmaternal investment via reduced grandmother-grandchild relationship quality. Here, we use responses to a retrospective questionnaire study of postmenopausal women, largely from the UK and US, to assess the impact of PND occurring in generation 1 on mother-child relationship quality across the life course of the child (generation 2) with whom it was associated, and also on the relationship quality with grandchildren (generation 3) from that child. Average mother-child relationship quality was lower when the child's birth was associated with PND. Multi-level regression modelling found that mother-child relationship quality decreased as PND symptom severity increased after controlling for individual effects and a variety of other factors known to influence relationship quality (individual mothers = 296, mother-child dyads = 646). Additionally, intergenerational relationships appear to be affected, with PND negatively associated with grandmother-grandchild relations (individual grandmothers = 125, relations with grandchildren from = 197 grandmother-parent dyads). That PND has long-term detrimental consequences for mother-child relationships, well beyond adolescence, highlights the need for investment in strategies to prevent PND and its cascade of negative multigenerational effects.
产后抑郁症（PND）已知与一系列对儿童和青少年有害的后果相关，这是由于其对母婴关系质量的破坏性影响所致。然而，到目前为止，人们对产后抑郁症对母亲与子女长期关系的影响以及可能产生的任何代际效应知之甚少。从进化的角度来看，母婴关系质量很重要，因为它在后代体现资本的积累中发挥作用，从而影响后代质量以及后代随后投资自己子女的能力。与后代的关系也会调节祖孙关系；如果产后抑郁症对母婴长期关系质量产生负面影响，那么它也可能通过降低祖孙关系质量对祖母的投资产生负面影响。在此，我们利用对主要来自英国和美国的绝经后女性进行的一项回顾性问卷调查研究的回复，来评估第一代出现的产后抑郁症对与之相关的孩子（第二代）一生的母婴关系质量以及该孩子与孙辈（第三代）关系质量的影响。当孩子出生与产后抑郁症相关时，平均母婴关系质量较低。多层次回归模型发现，在控制个体效应和其他各种已知会影响关系质量的因素后（个体母亲 = 296，母婴二元组 = 646），母婴关系质量随着产后抑郁症症状严重程度的增加而下降。此外，代际关系似乎也受到影响，产后抑郁症与祖孙关系呈负相关（个体祖母 = 125，与孙辈的关系来自 = 197个祖母 - 父母二元组）。产后抑郁症对母婴关系有长期的有害后果，远远超出青春期，这凸显了投资预防产后抑郁症及其一系列负面多代效应策略的必要性。
