Calls for more support for stressed parents

The latest Growing Up in Ireland report has recommended greater support for parents suffering with depression or stress.

 

The report, based on the study of 11,000 children from the age of nine months since 2006, also found a need for more help for women at risk of giving birth to premature or low birth-weight babies.

 

“Even from a very young age, the sensitivity that parents show when interacting with their babies is important for their development [and] both mothers’ and fathers’ parenting behaviours can be negatively affected by stress and depression,” says co-author, Dr Elizabeth Nixon from Trinity College Dublin.

 

For both parents, there was a significant association between higher levels of depression and higher levels of stress, while maternal stress was strongly associated with temperamentally difficult children.

 

The report found that both parents tend to be less sensitive when dealing with children who had difficult temperaments. In what could be deemed a vicious circle, the report concluded that these difficult children evoke fewer positive interactions from parents and this, in turn, can lead to even higher levels of infant irritability.