Postnatal depressive symptoms in mothers of infants at high risk of cerebral palsy: the role of delayed infant communicative development.

Purpose: Recent diagnostic advantages enable detection of cerebral palsy (CP) in infants before five months of age. Parents of children with CP often face mental health problems, but specific knowledge for infancy is needed. In this study, depressive symptoms in mothers of 16-week-old infants and associations with infant development were investigated.

Materials And Methods: This cross-sectional study involves 56 families, 22 high-risk and 34 infants without risk of CP. High-risk-CP was identified following international clinical guidelines. We assessed infant cognitive and language development using the Bayley-III and motor development using the Alberta Infant Motor Scale. Maternal depressive symptoms were self-reported using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale.

Results: Mothers of CP high-risk infants were 15.6 times more likely to experience risk of postnatal depression compared to mothers of infants without risk. Additionally, linear regression analyses showed that having an infant at high-risk of CP ( = .359, = .006) and delayed language development ( = -0.510, < .001) were associated with increased maternal depressive symptoms.

Conclusions: We recommend systematic screening of postnatal depressive symptoms following detection of high-risk-CP in infants. Early interventions could include a mother-infant interactional component to support caregivers in interpreting and responding to infant communicative cues.