Medications, Pregnancy and Lactation

Parental stress, attachment and development of the child

Recent studies have shown that prenatal and perinatal stress have a negative impact on both the mother (fatigue, gestational hypertension, etc.) and the child (shorter gestation, low birth weight, slower learning, etc.). Moreover, mother-child attachment is very important for infant development. In fact, it has been demonstrated that a poor mother-child relationship is associated with health problems and poorer psychosocial and cognitive development in children. Although several researches have focused on these two important factors in child development (stress and attachment), few studies have taken the father into account and none of them have focused on the impact of stress and attachment on the cognitive and behavioral development of one-year-old children whose mothers suffered from anxiety disorders and/or depression.

Through this research project, the team aims to evaluate the effects of perinatal parental stress as well as maternal attachment on the cognitive and behavioral development of one-year-old children. The different phases of this project are studied using data collected from the North American field study on antidepressants. Ethics committee approval is being sought at the CHU Sainte-Justine, the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and Children’s Hospital (London Health Sciences Centre).