The impact of a specialist home-visiting intervention on the language outcomes of young mothers and their children: a pragmatic randomised controlled trial.

Background: Young mothers are more likely to provide a suboptimal early language environment for their children who in turn show impairments in their language development, yet few studies have used observational methods to assess the effectiveness of home-visiting programmes in improving the language outcomes of young mothers and their children. The Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) is a licensed home-visiting intervention developed in the USA and introduced into practice in England. The intervention involves up to 64 structured home visits from early pregnancy until the child's second birthday by specially recruited and trained Family Nurses.

The efficacy of group delivered mentalization-based parenting interventions: A systematic review of the literature.

Mentalization refers to the capacity to understand and interpret one's own and others mental states. There is good evidence for individualised treatments aimed at increasing this capacity with children and adolescents. However, there has been no focused synthesis of the literature concerning specifically group delivered mentalization-based parenting interventions.

Maternal childhood maltreatment and perinatal outcomes: A systematic review.

Background: Maternal childhood maltreatment (MCM) is linked to poor perinatal outcomes but the evidence base lacks cohesion. We explore the impact of MCM on four perinatal outcome domains: pregnancy and obstetric; maternal mental health; infant; and the quality of the care-giving environment. Mechanisms identified in the included studies are discussed in relation to the maternal programming hypothesis and directions for future research.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders: A feasibility and proof of concept study.

Objectives: The aim of the current study was to assess the feasibility, safety, and effectiveness of a newly developed Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) intervention developed specifically to address the unique context of pregnancy and parenthood. The intervention was delivered to women accessing a specialist Perinatal Community Mental Health Service (PCMHS).

Design: An open-label pilot study was conducted of an 8-week, group-delivered ACT intervention targeting women with moderate-to-severe mood and/or anxiety disorders during pregnancy and/or postpartum.

Do home visiting programmes improve children's language development? A systematic review.

Objectives: This review examines home visiting programmes that specifically provide home based support to vulnerable, socially disadvantaged women who are either pregnant or have recently become a new parent. Home visiting programmes often report multiple outcomes. The purpose of this review is to systematically summarise how effective home visiting programmes are at improving young children's language development.

Assessing the impact of a family nurse-led intervention on young mothers' references to internal states.

A mother's propensity to refer to internal states during mother-child interactions is important for her child's developing social understanding. However, adolescent mothers are less likely to reference internal states when interacting with their children. We investigated whether young mothers' references to internal states are promoted by the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) intervention, an intensive home-visiting programme designed to support adolescent mothers in England.

Longitudinal studies examining the impact of prenatal and subsequent episodes of maternal depression on offspring antisocial behaviour.

Maternal depression is associated with adverse child outcomes including antisocial behaviour (ASB). Prospective longitudinal studies have focused on the timing and cumulative exposure to maternal depression to further delineate the association and mechanisms of effect. The objective of this systematic review was to synthesise and evaluate the findings of longitudinal studies of maternal depression and offspring antisocial behaviour.

The impact of maternal prenatal and postnatal anxiety on children's emotional problems: a systematic review.

Maternal mental health problems during pregnancy and the postnatal period are a major public health issue. Despite evidence that symptoms of both depression and anxiety are common during pregnancy and the postpartum, the impact of maternal anxiety on the child has received relatively less attention than the impact of maternal depression. Furthermore, the evidence base for the direct impact of maternal anxiety during pregnancy and the postpartum on children's emotional outcomes lacks cohesion.

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for clinically distressed health care workers: Waitlist-controlled evaluation of an ACT workshop in a routine practice setting.

Objectives: To examine the effects of a 1-day acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) workshop on the mental health of clinically distressed health care employees, and to explore ACT's processes of change in a routine practice setting.

Design: A quasi-controlled design, with participants block allocated to an ACT intervention or waiting list control group based on self-referral date.

Methods: Participants were 35 health care workers who had self-referred for the ACT workshop via a clinical support service for staff.

Antenatal depression and children's developmental outcomes: potential mechanisms and treatment options.

During the last decade there has been increased recognition of the prevalence of antenatal depression as well as an expansion in research examining the impact of maternal mood during pregnancy on offspring development. The aim of this review was to summarise the theoretical underpinnings and empirical evidence regarding the impact of antenatal depression on children's developmental outcomes. Biological mechanisms hypothesised to account for an association between antenatal depression and adverse offspring outcomes are first identified including the functioning of the prenatal Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal (HPA) axis and epigenetic processes.

Precursors to aggression are evident by 6 months of age.

We tested the hypothesis that developmental precursors to aggression are apparent in infancy. Up to three informants rated 301 firstborn infants for early signs of anger, hitting and biting; 279 (93%) were assessed again as toddlers. Informants' ratings were validated by direct observation at both ages.

Infants at familial risk for depression show a distinct pattern of cortisol response to experimental challenge.

Background: The aim of the study was to examine the link between maternal depression and the infant's HPA axis functioning in relation to a sequence of emotional challenges at 12 months postpartum, while controlling for maternal anxiety disorder and general sociodemographic risk.

Method: Two hundred and fifty-seven infants whose mothers had been interviewed in pregnancy, as part of a prospective longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of U.K.

Infants' Use of Force to Defend Toys: The Origins of Instrumental Aggression.

The two aims of the study were (a) to determine when infants begin to use force intentionally to defend objects to which they might have a claim and (b) to examine the relationship between toddlers' instrumental use of force and their tendencies to make possession claims. Infants' and toddlers' reactions to peers' attempts to take their toys were assessed in three independent data sets in which the same observational coding system had been used (N = 200). To ensure that infants' use of force was goal-directed and not a simple physical reaction, we recorded infants' reactions when peers picked up toys that the focal infants had just put down, or were nearby or in the focal infants' mothers' laps.

Known risk factors for violence predict 12-month-old infants' aggressiveness with peers.

This study tested the hypothesis that 12-month-old infants' use of force against peers is associated with known risk factors for violence. We conducted a prospective longitudinal study, which included laboratory observations of firstborn British infants (N = 271) during simulated birthday parties. No gender differences in aggressiveness were observed.

Antenatal depression and offspring psychopathology: the influence of childhood maltreatment.

Background: Antenatal depression and childhood maltreatment have each been associated with offspring psychopathology, but have never been examined in the same sample.

Aims: To determine whether childhood maltreatment influences the association between antenatal depression and offspring psychopathology.

Method: Prospectively collected data on antenatal depression, offspring maltreatment (age 11) and offspring psychopathology (age 11 and 16) were analysed in 120 mother-offspring dyads from the community-based South London Child Development Study.

Identifying early signs of aggression: psychometric properties of the Cardiff infant contentiousness scale.

Our aim was to develop an age-appropriate measure of early manifestations of aggression. We constructed a questionnaire about normative developmental milestones into which a set of items measuring infants' use of physical force against people and expressed anger were included. These items comprise the Cardiff Infant Contentiousness Scale (CICS).

Insufficient evidence of benefit: a systematic review of home telemonitoring for COPD.

Rationale, Aims And Objectives: The evidence to support the effectiveness of home telemonitoring interventions for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is limited, yet there are many efforts made to implement these technologies across health care services.

Methods: A comprehensive search strategy was designed and implemented across 9 electronic databases and 11 European, Australasian and North American telemedicine websites. Included studies had to examine the effectiveness of telemonitoring interventions, clearly defined for the study purposes, for adult patients with COPD.

Mothers' antenatal depression and their children's antisocial outcomes.

Interviews of 120 British adolescents and their parents (80% of a random sample of antenatal patients drawn from a representative urban population and followed longitudinally) revealed that 40 (33%) had been arrested and/or had a diagnosis of DSM-IV conduct disorder by 16 years of age; of those, 18 (45%) had committed violent acts. Depression in pregnancy significantly predicted violence in adolescence, even after controlling for the family environment, the child's later exposure to maternal depression, the mother's smoking and drinking during pregnancy, and parents' antisocial behavior. Mothers with a history of conduct problems were at elevated risk to become depressed in pregnancy, and the offspring of depressed women had a greater chance of becoming violent by age 16.

Antepartum and postpartum exposure to maternal depression: different effects on different adolescent outcomes.

Background: Postpartum depression (PPD) is considered a major public health problem that conveys risk to mothers and offspring. Yet PPD typically occurs in the context of a lifelong episodic illness, and its putative effects might derive from the child's exposure to other episodes, in pregnancy or later childhood. The aim of the study is to test two hypotheses: (1) that the effects of PPD on adolescent outcomes are partly explained by antepartum depression (APD) and (2) that the effects of APD and PPD are both explained by later exposure to the mother's depression.

Antenatal depression predicts depression in adolescent offspring: prospective longitudinal community-based study.

Background: Depression is familial. Evidence shows that untreated postnatal depression is associated with adverse outcomes for the child. Few studies have traced prospectively the course of maternal depression through pregnancy, the postnatal period and the following 16 years in relation to adolescent offspring depression.