Mother’s depression worsens asthma in children

US researchers say that a mother’s depression can worsen her child’s asthma symptoms. The 6-month study done by researchers at John Hopkins University looked at 262 black mothers and their children. What they observed was that mothers who had severe depression also often had children with frequent asthmatic attacks. On the other hand women who has less depression, has children with fewer asthmatic symptoms.


Says lead investigator Kristin Riekert, a pediatric psychologist and co director of the John Hopkins Adherence Research Center, "Even though our research was not set up to measure just how much a mom's depression increased the frequency of her child's symptoms, a clear pattern emerged in which the latter followed the earlier. “


On the other hand, children who has less asthma did not necessary have mothers with less depression. Based on these observations the researcher say that depression may be an independent risk factor that can predict the severity of child.


"Intuitively, it may seem that we're dealing with a chicken-egg situation, but our study suggests otherwise. The fact that mom's depression was not affected by how often her child had symptoms really caught us off guard, but it also suggested which factor comes first," Riekert said.


Since depression can profoundly affect mental health concentration, causes fatigue, leads to low concentration, it may impair the mother’s inability to mange her child asthma, which often requires daily drug treatment and frequent doctor visits say the researchers.


"Mom is the one who must implement the doctor's recommendations for treatment and follow-up, and if she is depressed she can't do it well, so the child will suffer," study lead investigator Michiko Otsuki said in the news release.


This simple observational study may be true but there are many other factors in African American that have not been looked at. Economy, availability of health care facilities, finances, physical health, obesity, single parent or lack of transport- all these can lead to worsening of not only asthma but also any other medical disorder