CNN/AP: Study: Treating mom can prevent kids' depression

Study: Treating mom can prevent kids' depression
Experts call results of small study convincing
Tuesday, March 21, 2006

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Researchers say they've shown for the first time that treating a mother's depression can help prevent depression and anxiety disorders in her child, a provocative finding with potentially big public health implications.

The study was small, but the researchers and other experts called it convincing and said it illustrates how important a parent's well-being is to a child.

"It's a very dramatic and important finding," said co-author Dr. A. John Rush, a psychiatry professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Depression runs in families and has a strong genetic component, but environmental factors can trigger it. The study results indicate that for children of depressed mothers, that trigger is sometimes their mothers' illness acting up, said lead author Myrna Weissman, a researcher at Columbia University and New York Psychiatric Institute.

Effective treatment for mothers could mean their children might avoid the need for prescription antidepressants, the researchers said....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/03/21/moms.and.depression.ap/index.html

Kids depend on their parents?

Well, hey, at least they admit it.

"If you have a depression mother, you ought to do everything you can to get her better, because there's a double effect," said study author Myrna Weissman, a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City. "While depression may be a genetic disorder, it has a strong environmental component. And, for a child, a parent's illness is a very strong environmental effect. You want to reduce that effect so that you can have a beneficial effect on the child."

"If a mother is sick, it's going to impact the entire family," added Dr. Eva Ritvo, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine. " showed beautifully how children's symptoms went down in a really rapid time frame, and that's encouraging. As a profession, we need to be aggressive about recognizing, diagnosing and treating depression, and we have to be more cognizant of the impact on extended family."

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Similar results are likely with other forms of treatment and with treating fathers, the authors stated. "We focused on mothers because depression is more common in women than men, and women are more apt to come for treatment," Weissman said. "But we suspect the same with depressed fathers."

The rapidity at which problems resolved (within three months) was one of the most striking aspects of the study. "We were amazed at these findings, and amazed at how strong they were," Weissman said.


http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2006/03/21/hscout531644.html

Always willing to help a mom!