The Impact of Mother's Depression on Her Nursing Experiences and Attitudes During Breastfeeding

Mother's depression during postpartum is rather common and it has an impact on the mother-child relationship. As breast-feeding is an important situation for the early mother-child interaction, the impact of mother's depression on her breast-feeding and nursing attitudes and experiences was decided to be studied. In this pilot study 119 healthy primipara mothers filled in Beck's Depression Inventory, breast-feeding and childrearing attitude scales and other questionnaires. The prevalence of depression was 8%. The depressed mothers had more difficulties during breast-feeding than other mothers. The attitudes of the depressed mothers were more positive during pregnancy, but more negative during breast-feeding than those of the non-depressed mothers. The results might be clinically meaningful, although we need more detailed information about the correlations between depression and breast-feeding experiences.