The bond between a mother and child is one of the strongest and most elemental in life. York University psychology Professor Rebecca Pillai Riddell, associate vice-president research, led a research team with members from the universities of Ottawa and Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) as they examined links between maternal depression symptoms and mother-child attachment early in life. The first author of this work was Shaylea Badovinac, a doctoral student and Ontario Graduate Fellow in York University’s Faculty of Health.
The study concluded that mothers of children with “disorganized” or “controlling” attachment styles consistently report the most depressive symptoms across the child’s first three years of life. These attachment styles are particularly dysfunctional, as they describe children who do not have a coherent strategy for obtaining the comfort and care from their parent that helps them adaptively manage their emotions in distressing situations.
The World Health Organization named maternal mental illness as a major public health challenge