Do infants of depressed mothers cry more than other infants?

Abstract

Objectives: This study compared the crying behaviour of infants of depressed and non‐depressed mothers at 3 and 6 months of age. Methodology Twenty‐nine depressed and 44 non‐depressed mothers, their infants and partners participated in this study. Mothers were asked to complete 24‐hour diaries of the amount their infants cried for 1 week. Results The diurnal variations in crying patterns of infants of depressed and non‐depressed mothers were not significantly different. However, infants of depressed mothers were found to cry significantly more in total per day than infants of non‐depressed mothers at 3 months of age, but not at 6 months. The results could not be explained by differences in i..