In a study at Kenyatta National Hospital, Professor Wangari Kuria and her colleagues found that among malnourished children, 61 percent of the mothers were depressed compared to 5.1 percent of the those whose children were not.
Similar findings from Nigeria and Uganda confirm that depression in mothers is bad for normal child development.
Q “My child is now one-year-old and I have noticed her behaviour is not normal compared to the two elder siblings at this stage of development. Her reflex seems clumsy and a friend tells me it could be a sign of head injury during birth. How is that possible?”
***
Your friend could well be right. Only a paediatrician or similarly qualified doctor can give the correct answer to your question, so please consult one as soon as you can.
Having settled that seemingly easy question, we must now address two issues that arise from the matters in hand. The first relates to you and your three children, and the second is about you as their mother in your own right. Let me explain.
Did you know, for example, that mothers who have to look after three or more children under the age of five have a higher risk of developing depression than others? In other words do you know that your risk for depression is now higher than average? Following on to that is another fact not as well known as it should which is that depressed mothers tend to have underweight children. This is because they are less able to look after them.
Indeed depression in mothers is a predictor of poor infant development. To make a bad situation even worse, depressed mothers are less likely to take their children for immunisation, and when they fall ill, are less likely to follow the doctor’s instruction on say, oral rehydration fluids those dehydrated by diarrhoea. More facts.
In a study at Kenyatta National Hospital, Professor Wangari Kuria and her colleagues found that among malnourished children, 61 percent of the mothers were depressed compared to 5.1 percent of the those whose children were not. Similar findings from Nigeria and Uganda confirm that depression in mothers is bad for normal child development.
This now brings us to the second matter raised by your question. Did you know that during the first year after giving birth, chances of developing depression go up significantly? Indeed it is estimated that up to 15percent of mothers develop clinically significant depression during the first year following delivery. During this period, as in your case, the child is hit by two potentially devastating events. The first is the risk of the mother developing depression and the second is related to the ability of a depressed mother to look after her children, more so if they are several and under the age of five.
Sadly that is not the end of the story. Maternal depression is predictive of adolescent depression, meaning that the problems seen in early life could follow the children in later life. Also significant is the fact that most mental illnesses make themselves manifest in childhood, meaning that by the time children do their KCPE, (age 14) 50 percent of those who will develop mental illness later in life can be picked up. By the time they leave university (age 24) about 75 percent of all future mental disorders have made themselves manifest. You might be wondering what these many numbers mean in practical reality.
The recently published Mental Health Taskforce Report considered this question and concluded that the early identification of mental health conditions in early childhood is an effective way of dealing with this problem. Related to your question however is the fact that injuries sustained during birth can also lead to certain behavioural problems later in life. It is therefore clear that parents and teachers must be at the front line of this process of early identification of those potentially in need.
One example will suffice. It is estimated that between seven to 10 percent of school children will have clinically significant symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This means that this group will not fully benefit from being in the classroom. When asked, parents and teachers usually know these children because they are the noise makers, are hyperactive, lack concentration, and clearly perform below their ability.
What the teachers and parents lack is knowledge of this as a mental health condition which, if properly treated can lead to excellent outcomes for the children and their families. The report recommends among other things the education of parents and teachers.
Indeed, many good teachers even without knowing the clinical diagnosis deal with the problem by keeping such children at the front of the class next to the teacher where they receive the attention they deserve. Sadly some equally well-meaning teachers go in the opposite direction and use the cane to control these children who in reality have a mental health need.
Coming back to your one-year-old child, I hope you can begin to understand the complex nature of the interactions that impact the growing child.
PAYE Tax Calculator
Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
