Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Helping Mothers Is Beneficial for Infants Too
Delivering Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to new mothers recovering from post-partum depression (PPD) may be a useful intervention in preventing future psychiatric illness in their children, shows new research led by McMaster University and published in the Journal of Affective Disorders ().
Postpartum depression (PPD) affects up to one in five mothers and birthing parents and more than two-thirds of the costs associated with PPD are due to its effects on offspring. The negative effects of PPD on offspring emotion regulation (ER) are well described. Indeed, difficulties with ER predict an increased risk of poorer physical and mental health outcomes.
‘Treating Postpartum depression with group Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is capable of adaptively improving infant emotional regulation.#depression #parenting #brain development’
Hence, the new research, led by Ryan Van Lieshout, examined the effects of group CBT on infants' emotional regulation by tracking 73 pairs of mothers and babies undergoing PPD treatments between 2018 and 2020.
Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy a Better Choice for New Mothers and Infants?
The participants were randomly assigned into two groups, with the experimental group receiving immediate CBT and the control group waiting nine weeks before starting therapy. Early problems with emotion regulation are very important because they are involved in the development of almost all kinds of mental health problems later in life.This is the first time that anyone has shown in a randomized controlled trial - the strongest study design possible in humans - that treating mothers with an inexpensive, scalable talking therapy (CBT) can lead to adaptive changes in infant brain functioning.
Each group underwent weekly two-hour CBT sessions delivered over nine weeks. Investigators compared infants' emotion regulation between the two groups and tracked progress among the infants by measuring their brain function using electroencephalography (EEG; a measure of brain activity).
The functioning of other parts of the nervous system by recording their heart rate with electrocardiography (ECG) tests and surveying mothers about their babies' temperament.
The study found that infants whose mothers were treated with peer-delivered CBT immediately had more adaptive changes in both EEG and ECG measures of emotion regulation, compared with infants whose mothers were on the nine-week waitlist ().
Mothers in the first group also experienced a clinically significant reduction in PPD symptoms following treatment. The development of emotion regulation is largely shaped by maternal interactions early in life and infants depend on continuous exchanges with caregivers to regulate any emotional distress.
The constant give-and-take between parents and infants forms the foundation of their future self-regulatory capacity beyond infancy. Ten individuals who recovered from PPD delivered the group CBT treatment after undergoing training which included two days of in-classroom learning, followed by a nine-week observership ().
These findings are encouraged by the prospect of this model of support delivery being replicated for larger-scale use in the general population. Researchers are very excited to see this paper move into broader circulation because its results are meaningful and have implications for future community work.
References:
- The impact of peer-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy for postpartum depression on infant emotion regulation - (https:www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032723007413)
- The influence of parenting on infant emotionality: A multi-level psychobiological perspective - (https:www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273229706000517)
- Effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy-based interventions for maternal perinatal depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis - (https:bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-023-04547-9)
Source: Eurekalert