Depressed fathers, crying infants

Excessive crying in infants has been linked to symptoms of depression in the mother. Now a study conducted in the Netherlands links excessive crying in infants to depression in the father as well.

Excessive infant crying is a common and often stress-inducing problem for parents that can ultimately result in child abuse. From previous research it is known that depression in mothers is related to excessive infant crying, but so far little is known about the influence of depression in fathers.

To explore whether father's depression during pregnancy can also lead to excessive crying in infants, researchers identified 2213 set of parents in Netherlands and assessed symptoms of depression when the mothers were 20 weeks pregnant.

Overall, 12 per cent of the fathers and 11 per cent of the mothers showed signs of depression. For example, they answered positively to questions about feeling lonely, blue, hopeless, or worthless; having "no interest in things," or having "thoughts of ending life."

Later, when the infants of these parents had reached 2 months of age, the researchers assessed parental reports of excessive crying. Overall, 4.1 percent of depressed fathers, compared with 2.2 percent of non-depressed fathers, had infants who cried for at least 3 hours daily on 3 or more days in the previous week. Corresponding figures among depressed and non-depressed mothers were 4.8 and 2.2 percent, respectively.

It was found that excessive infant crying remained more prevalent among depressed fathers and mothers even after allowing for parental age, education level, and ethnicity; gender and number of children; and paternal smoking.

The finding that depression in fathers appears to be associated with excessive crying among infants, should inspire future fathers with depressive symptoms to seek treatment.