Fathers suffering from Post-Natal Depression (PND) respond more negatively to their children, and could therefore affect their developement, according to a study by researchers at the University of Oxford.
Experts studied the behaviour of 38 fathers from Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, 19 of whom suffered from depression, and 19 of whom didn’t.
They filmed a three minute interaction between child and father and attempted to draw conclusions from its content.
The team claimed they were looking for three things, namely, “more speech focused on paternal experience and less on the infant’s experience, increased negativity, in terms of more negative and critical comments about the infant and about the self, and fewer comments relating to the infant’s mental state, i.e. feelings, beliefs, intentions and desires.”
Typical examples included: “I’m not able to make you smile”, “Daddy’s not as good as Mummy”, “Are you tired?”, and “Can’t think of anything to do all of a sudden”.
The proportion of comments showing some negativity rose from an average of 11% among fathers without depression to 19% in fathers with depression.
The proportion of the fathers’ comments that were focused on the baby dropped from 72% to 60%, while the proportion that focused on themselves rose from 14% to 24%.
Dr Paul Ramchandani, a lead researcher, was keen to highlight that the research was a pilot project. “This particular paper had 38 participants, which is a limitation, and partly for this reason in the paper we urge that the findings should be interpreted with some caution,” he warned.
He defended the seemingly short period of interaction chosen, three minutes, by claiming that “infants can find it challenging to do much longer.”
The study comes in the wake of 2010 research by the Medical Research Council, which found that 3% of the 85,000 fathers considered suffered from PND.
The label PND caused some controversy in a review of the research in The Guardian. The team clarified, “We do not actually use the term postnatal depression (PND) in men, as it isn’t really all that useful.”
Experts stated that although the conclusion of the research may seem like common sense, the emphasis is of the project is to “look to the future.”
Their next step is to examine the impact of depression on children throughout their development, and to design early interventions to aid fathers in the way they play and talk with their infants.
