Treating mum’s depression may help children, researchers find

RESEARCHERS say they’ve shown for the first time that treating a mother’s depression can help prevent depression and anxiety disorders in her child, a provocative finding with potentially big public health implications.

The study was small, but the researchers and other experts called it convincing and said it illustrates how important a parent’s well-being is to a child.

“It’s a very dramatic and important finding,” said co-author Dr A John Rush, a psychiatry professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre.