Children of depressed mothers can be born with dysfunctional neuroregularatory mechanisms, brought on by abnormal fetus development caused internally by the mother's depression during pregnancy. Such abnormal developments are thought to be due the fetus' exposure to neuroendocrine alternations, which are associated with depression, that may cause constricted blood flow to the fetus. Some abnormal fetal developments manifested at birth include tendencies to respond in a particular style or assume certain behavioral traits. Research suggests that we must examine certain aspects of the fetal environment that may correlate w

The first factor is reduced blood flow to the fetus. Studies show that in the third trimester of pregnancy, a maternal trait of anxiety is associated with impaired uterine blood flow. This decreased blood flow is associated with lower birth weights, and less fetal movement during pregnancy. Depression acts as a stressor, and maternal stress is related to increased fetal heart rate during pregnancy and low attention orientation and arousal for newborns. We are able to see that maternal depression during pregnancy may have a serious impact on the fetus leading to difficulties for newborns.

For school-aged children and adolescents, parents should shift to the provision of general social support and stress buffering. Stress buffering involves trying to help a child to cope with stressors from cognitive-intellectual and social environments. By doing this, the parents may also monitor the child's behavior while providing firm discipline. Depressed mothers, however, tend to suppress their discipline behavior in response a child's aggressive behavior. Therefore, a depressed parent may reinforce the child's misbehavior. By not receiving this discipline, the child is at greater risk for school failure and behavioral and emotional problems. Moreover, depressed mothers exhibit more negative appraisals, and have lower tolerance levels for a child's misbehavior. Researchers have found that depressed mothers express more criticism about their child, both by direct interaction with the child and in interviews about the child. Of course family dysfunction and maternal depression or stress can be a contributer to the mother's negative reports. Never theless, the parenting of depressed mothers is associated with negative affects in the child's social and cognitive development. Behavior patterns between mother and child reflect the consequence of inadequate parenting. For example, depressed mothers exhibit less responsiveness to their infants, and the infants look less at their mothers in the interaction. With mothers that were withdrawn, infant appeared distressed and protested. Through this social learning or modeling of the parent, children learn cognitions and behaviors which resemble those of the depressed mother. These women are found to have infants to be less responsive, less content and less active which tend to show less distress during maternal separation. Infants are f

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Approximate Word count = 1614
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)