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Maternal Depression On Child Wellbeing And Development

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Introduction During the last two decades, researchers have intensified their efforts to expand the findings about paternal perinatal depression. The study conducted by Goodman in 2004, has shown that the postpartum depression’s prevalence among fathers varied from 1.2% to 25% in the population sample. Furthermore, these percentages rose to achieve 24 to 50 per cent when the paternal postpartum depression was associated with maternal postpartum depression. The literature review and studies asserted the detrimental consequences of paternal perinatal depression on child wellbeing and development (Children, C. on D., Parenting Practices, and the Heaslthy Development of, Medicine, I. of, Education, D. of B. and S. S. and, & Council, N. R., 2009) such as hyperactivity, emotional deregulations, behavioral problems (Davis, Davis, Freed, & Clark, 2011, van den Berg et al., 2009). These studies outlined the importance of prevention and intervention to foster the paternal perinatal depression issue, through developing screening, diagnosis and management guidelines. However, research has shown that men are less likely than women to seek-help for mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, mood disorders and emotional difficulties (Padesky&Hammen, 1981; Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007). The Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2007 has reported that “at some point in their lives one in five men experience anxiety and one in eight will have depression, whereas for women one

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