43

Few studies have investigated whether the impact of maternal postnatal depressive symptoms (PNDS) on child cognitive development is independent from that of persisting depressive symptoms.To assess whether 6-weeks PNDS predict impaired child cognitive development independently from later maternal depressive symptoms, 497 mother-baby dyads were followed up over 2 years with repeated measures of depressive maternal symptoms and infant cognitive development.Results shows that infants of mothers with PNDS were more likely to present with poor cognitive outcome. This association remained significant at trend level when maternal depressive state over the follow-up was adjusted for. Then the impact of early maternal PNDS on infant cognitive development may be partly explained by persistence or recurrence of maternal depressive symptoms in the months following early postpartum.