Mental health of Mothers and Fathers.

I hate beating a dead horse but most everyone who knows me, knows that I come from mentally unstable parents.  This is why this topic is meaningful; I have firsthand knowledge of how mentally unstable mothers and fathers can damage a child self esteem.  Furthermore, these mentally unbalance parents can have a devastating impact on a child’s physical and mental development.  Here is some information I would like to share that I think should be added to the public health topics:

Maternal Mental Illness and Mother-child Relations

“Three disorders are specifically associated with the puerperium (Steiner, 1996) postpartum blues, postnatal depression and puerperal psychosis. All are affective disorders. Childbearing may exacerbate schizophrenia. The need to change medication (especially the cessation of lithium) may provoke a relapse in bipolar affective disorder. Recreational drugs and alcohol pose indirect risks for the infant through impaired economic and psychological functioning of the mother, as well as direct toxicity.  We shall see below that other disorders, particularly personality disorders, eating disorders and summarization disorders, may present specific risks to the sufferer's offspring. There ciprocal nature of mother child interactions, and the specific nature of some postnatal mental illnesses, also raises the question of the child promoting mental ill health in the parent” ( Steiner, 1996).

Steiner, M. (1996) Treatment of psychiatric disorders duringpregnancy and post-partum.  In Psychiatric Issues in Women, Vol. 2 (ed. U. Halbreich), pp. 687-700.  London: BaillièreTindall.

Mental health of mothers, fathers, and families in general: Asia

Unicef estimates that over 220 million children aged less than 5 years in the developing world have significantly impaired growth. The South Asian region is perhaps worst affected, being home to more than half of all the underweight children in the world.² This article considers the relevance of new evidence on the epidemiology and impact of postnatal depression in South Asia on poor infant growth in low-income countries.  This evidence shows, for the first time, that a common and potentially treatable mental health problem in mothers is one of the causes of infant failure to thrive.  We use this evidence to present a case that child focused interventions, largely aiming to provide supplementary nutrition, may need to be combined with mother focused interventions that target maternal mental health.

Unicef  Panel 3: Stunting linked to impaired intellectual development. In: The state of the world's             children 1998: focus on nutrition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998:16-9.        (www.unicef.org/sowc98/panel3.htm, accessed 29 Oct 2003.