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SPECIAL THANKS TO WALMART FOUNDATION
A study was conducted by a team of medical professional, (Cox MD, Buman, Valenzuela MSW; MPH, Joseph MD; MPH, Mitchell, BA and Woods MD, MPH. ) The purpose of the study was to investigate the association between depressive symptoms in adolescent mothers and their perceived maternal caretaking ability and social support.
Teen Pregnancy links to Depression
Approximately 400,000 females, aged 15-19, continue to give birth each year. Effective parenting is considered key to enhancing child outcomes and breaking the multigenerational cycle of teen pregnancy. Maternal self esteem is an important early parenting attribute related to maternal infant bonding and subsequent effective parenting. The development of high maternal self-esteem is dependent on a mother’s abilities to interact with and care for her infant. Adolescent parents, compared to adult parents, face many factors that potentially inhibit the development of positive maternal self esteem.
They are develop mentally immature and less able to think abstractly. They are more likely to live in poverty and to have histories of adverse life events such as physical or sexual abuse during childhood.They may have eperienced ineffective parenting, poor limit setting, and high family dysfunction. Adolescent mothers also of- ten report feelings of isolation, loneliness, and depression which may potentially impact maternal self esteem.
The finding in this study indicated that 53.6 percent of teen mothers had depressive symptoms, Which were similar to rates of adolescent mother depression reported in previous studies. The adolescents also showed high prevalence of prior mental health problems including receiving psychotherapy, taking psychotropic medications, psychiatric hospitalization, suicidal gestures and suicidal ideation. Higher scores were associated with decreased maternal self-esteem and self-perceived care taking ability. Social support appeared to be a protective factor with higher levels of social support associated with lower depressive symptoms.
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