New mothers twice as likely to have post-natal depression in lockdown

2021-05-11

(Press-News.org) Almost half (47.5%) of women with babies aged six months or younger met the threshold for postnatal depression during the first COVID-19 lockdown, more than double average rates for Europe before the pandemic (23%), finds a new study led by UCL researchers.

Women described feelings of isolation, exhaustion, worry, inadequacy, guilt, and increased stress. Many grieved for what they felt were lost opportunities for them and their baby, and worried about the developmental impact of social isolation on their new little one.

Those whose partners were unable or unavailable to help with parenting and domestic tasks, particularly where they were also dealing with the demands of home schooling, felt the negative impacts of lockdown most acutely.

Researchers surveyed 162 mums in London between May and June 2020 using a unique social network survey designed in response to lockdown. Participants listed up to 25 people who were important to them and shared who they had interacted with and how, whether in person, by phone, video call or messaging on social media.

The women also reported on their well-being with researchers basing depression ratings on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, the most commonly used tool. This allowed them to capture the full range of mothers' social interactions, as well as their mental health.

The findings are published today (11 May 2021) in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

The more contact new mums had with people, either remotely or face-to-face, the fewer depressive symptoms they reported, suggesting reduced social contact during lockdown may have increased the risk of postnatal depression.

However, where women had maintained some face-to-face contact with family members, they were actually more likely to have depressive symptoms than women who saw fewer of their relatives. Researchers think this reflects family responding to mums who were struggling with their mental health, potentially breaking lockdown rules to help them.

Many mothers felt that lockdown created a 'burden of constant mothering' without anyone around to help, and that while virtual contact (video calls/phone calls/texts/social media messages) helped, it was still inadequate. Virtual contact meant women had to actively ask for help, because friends and family couldn't see them struggling, which they felt amplified the stresses of motherhood.

Dr Sarah Myers (UCL Anthropology) said: "Caring for a new baby is challenging and all new mothers suffer some level of mental, physical and emotional exhaustion. Low social support is one of the key risk factors for developing postnatal depression. Social distancing measures during lockdown created so many barriers to having practical help and meaningful support from others in the weeks and months after their baby's arrival, leading many new mothers to feel totally overwhelmed.

"It really does take a village to raise a child, especially in a crisis when everyone is dealing with increased demands, stresses and significant life events. Our survey shows that lockdowns leave new mothers more vulnerable to postnatal depression, and that digital solutions might help but they are not the answer. Policy makers must take this into account as we continue to deal with COVID-19, for the sake of mums, babies and whole families."

Not everything new mums experienced as a result of lockdown was negative. Some felt it 'protected' family time, leading to better bonding. Other benefits included partners being around more to co-parent and help out than if the UK had not been in lockdown.

Dr Emily Emmott (UCL Anthropology) said: "New mothers with more than one child were hardest hit, left to deal with newborns on top of multiple demands like home schooling. First-time mothers often felt cheated out of precious time spent together with their babies and family or friends, making coming to terms with the change of identity and isolation that new mothers often feel even harder.

"But, where partners were at home more because of lockdown, and able to share the relentless tasks and household chores or take care of existing children, new mums felt the benefits. Some reported that it helped everyone develop closer relationships and that the family benefited overall from spending this time together. This should also be food for thought when we look at support for parents with new babies, not just in a pandemic."

Comments from new mothers surveyed about their experiences included: "It has definitely made me more anxious - am I doing enough for my baby, is she ok, is she healthy and happy, should I be doing more, do people think I'm a good mother? Much of this is because it's hard to communicate online."

A first-time mother said, "I feel I'm making it up as I go along and have no one to guide me", while another mum said, "I worry that my child isn't getting the development they deserve as they are not getting enough stimulus."

One mum described how, "We haven't had anyone come over to give us a break since before lockdown and it's exhausting." Another said: "I think lockdown has made me feel like I'm not a person in my own right anymore. Not having anyone to hold him or to help out a bit makes me feel it's all me and it's a lot of pressure, which I can resent. I feel like I don't have any time to rest." While another mum said, "I am an exhausted mum not able to concentrate on either of my children and this is taking a toll on everyone."

INFORMATION:

Notes to Editors For more information, or to speak to the researchers involved, please contact: Jane Bolger, UCL Media Relations. T: +44 (0)20 3108 9040 /+44 (0)7713 261 477 E: j.bolger@ucl.ac.uk

Sarah Myers, Emily H. Emmott: Communication Across Maternal Social Networks During England's First National Lockdown and Its Association With Postnatal Depressive Symptoms will be published in Frontiers in Psychology on Tuesday 11 May 2021 at 0500 UK time, 0600 CET, 00:00 Eastern Time and is under a strict embargo until this time.

The DOI for this paper will be: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.648002.

Dr Sarah Myers is also a member of the Birthrites Independent Max Planck Research Group on the Cultures of Reproduction.

About UCL - London's Global University UCL is a diverse community with the freedom to challenge and think differently.

Our community of more than 41,500 students from 150 countries and over 12,500 staff pursues academic excellence, breaks boundaries and makes a positive impact on real world problems.

We are consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in the world and are one of only a handful of institutions rated as having the strongest academic reputation and the broadest research impact.

We have a progressive and integrated approach to our teaching and research - championing innovation, creativity and cross-disciplinary working. We teach our students how to think, not what to think, and see them as partners, collaborators and contributors.

For almost 200 years, we are proud to have opened higher education to students from a wide range of backgrounds and to change the way we create and share knowledge.

We were the first in England to welcome women to university education and that courageous attitude and disruptive spirit is still alive today. We are UCL.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk| Follow @uclnews on Twitter | Watch our YouTube channel | Listen to UCL podcasts on SoundCloud | Find out what's on at UCL Minds | #MadeAtUCL Find out how UCL is helping lead the global fight against COVID-19 http://www.ucl.ac.uk/covid-19-research

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Improved air quality during first wave of COVID prevented 150 premature deaths in major Spain cities

2021-05-11

Air quality in Spain temporarily improved during the first wave of COVID-19, largely as a result of mobility restrictions. Until recently, however, the effect of this improvement on the health of the population was poorly understood. A new study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation, together with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS), has estimated that this improvement in air quality prevented around 150 premature deaths in Spain's provincial capital cities. Several analyses have estimated the mortality reduction from improved ...

MOF metallic mastery

2021-05-11

The tightly defined ratios of metals in MOFs makes them ideal starting materials for novel catalyst creation. Heating bimetallic metal organic frameworks (MOFs) until their porous structure collapses into nanoparticles can be a highly effective way to make catalysts. This novel approach to catalyst design has now been used by KAUST and Spanish researchers to make a robust catalyst that converts carbon dioxide (CO2) into carbon monoxide (CO) gas with unprecedented selectivity. The benefit of this method pioneered at KAUST is that it can generate mixed metal catalytic nanoparticles that have proven challenging or impossible to make by conventional means. Capturing ...

How to predict severe influenza in hospitalised patients

2021-05-11

Published today in Nature Communications, the team from the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute), Alfred Health and Monash University sought to understand which patients would recover quickly from influenza and which would become severely ill. The four-year project took samples from patients hospitalised with influenza at up to five time points during their hospital stay, and 30 days after discharge. They analysed the breadth of the immune response, enabling them to describe the specific roles of several different types of immune cells, including killer and helper T cells, B cells and innate cells. University of Melbourne Dr Oanh Nguyen, Research Fellow at the Doherty Institute, said two significant findings of the research include understanding ...

Discovering candidate for reflex network of walking cats: Understanding animals with robots

2021-05-11

A group of researchers from Osaka University developed a quadruped robot platform that can reproduce the neuromuscular dynamics of animals (Figure 1), discovering that a steady gait and experimental behaviors of walking cats emerged from the reflex circuit in walking experiments on this robot. Their research results were published in Frontiers in Neurorobotics. It was thought that a steady gait in animals is generated by complex nerve systems in the brain and spinal marrow; however, recent research shows that a steady gait is produced by the reflex circuit alone. Scientists discovered a candidate of reflex circuit to generate the steady walking motion ...

Researchers reveal Knl1 gene function in plants

2021-05-11

Dr. HAN Fangpu's group from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reports the identification and functional study of the maize Knl1 gene in an article published online in PNAS. The gene is a major component of the KMN network that links centromeric DNA and the plus-ends of spindle microtubules. It also plays an important role in kinetochore protein recruitment. The kinetochore complex that assembles on the centromeres mediates the proper partitioning of chromosomes to daughter cells during the cell cycle. However, kinetochore proteins undergo frequent mutations and coevolve with their interaction partners, leading to great diversity in kinetochore composition in eukaryotes. Functional ...

Researchers develop magnetic thin film for spin-thermoelectric energy conversion

2021-05-11

A team of researchers, affiliated with UNIST has recently introduced a new class of magnetic materials for spin caloritronics. Published in the February 2021 issue of Nature Communications, the demonstrated STE applications of a new class of magnets will pave the way for versatile recycling of ubiquitous waste heat. This breakthrough has been led by Professor Jung-Woo Yoo and his research team in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at UNIST. Spin thermoelectrics is an emerging thermoelectric technology that offers energy harvesting from waste heat. ...

In 'minibrains,' hindering key enzyme by different amounts has opposite growth effects

2021-05-11

Like many around the world, the lab of Professor Mriganka Sur in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT has embraced the young technology of cerebral organoids, or "minibrains," for studying human brain development in health and disease. By making a surprising finding about a common practice in the process of growing the complex tissue cultures, the lab has produced both new guidance that can make the technology better, and also new insight into the important roles a prevalent enzyme takes in natural brain development. To make organoids, scientists take skin cells from a donor, induce them to become stem cells and then culture those in a bioreactor, guiding their development with the addition of growth ...

People are persuaded by social media messages, not view numbers

2021-05-11

COLUMBUS, Ohio - People are more persuaded by the actual messages contained in social media posts than they are by how many others viewed the posts, a new study suggests. Researchers found that when people watched YouTube videos either for or against e-cigarette use, their level of persuasion wasn't directly affected by whether the video said it was viewed by more than a million people versus by fewer than 20. What mattered for persuasion was viewers' perception of the message as truthful and believable. "There wasn't a bandwagon effect in which people were persuaded by a video just because ...

Gene therapy offers a potential cure to children born without immune system

2021-05-11

An international team of researchers at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have developed a gene therapy that successfully treated 48 out of 50 children with a form of severe combined immunodeficiency that leaves them without an immune system. Severe combined immunodeficiency due to adenosine deaminase deficiency, also known as ADA-SCID, is a rare, life-threatening disease that prevents children from living a normal life. It is caused by mutations in the gene that creates the enzyme adenosine deaminase, which is essential to a functioning immune system. Children with ADA-SCID have no immune system and, if left untreated, the condition can be fatal within the first two years of life. Day-to-day activities ...

Gene therapy offers potential cure to children born without an immune system

2021-05-11

An experimental form of gene therapy developed by a team of researchers from UCLA and Great Ormond Street Hospital in London has successfully treated 48 of 50 children born with a rare and deadly inherited disorder that leaves them without an immune system. Severe combined immunodeficiency due to adenosine deaminase deficiency, or ADA-SCID, is caused by mutations in the ADA gene that creates the enzyme adenosine deaminase, which is essential to a functioning immune system. For children with the condition, even day-to-day activities like going to school or playing with friends can lead to dangerous, life-threatening infections. If untreated, ADA-SCID can be fatal within the first two years of life. The investigational gene therapy method involves first collecting ...

New mothers twice as likely to have post-natal depression in lockdown

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: