Maternal depressive symptoms and children's cognitive development: Does early childcare and child's sex matter?

PLoS One. 2020 Jan 10;15(1):e0227179. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227179. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Background: Maternal depressive symptoms (MDS) have been associated with poorer child cognitive development. Some studies have shown that childcare attendance moderates associations between MDS and child behavior problems, but we do not know if this is the case for children's cognitive development. Furthermore, few studies have evaluated whether associations between MDS and child cognitive development differ for boys and girls at school entry.

Methods: This study used data from a population-based cohort study (n = 1364) comprising well-validated measures of children's cognitive development including academic readiness and language development in kindergarten and reading and mathematics achievement in first grade. Information on MDS was collected repeatedly from the child's age of 5 months to 5 years and on childcare from 5 months to 4.5 years. Moderation analyses were conducted to evaluate the differential associations of MDS with children's outcomes depending on the type of childcare attended and the child's sex.

Results: Childcare type or child's sex did not moderate associations between MDS and children's cognitive outcomes except for MDS being associated with lower scores on reading achievement in first grade for girls with a very small effect size (sr2 = .003). Childcare attendance was associated with higher scores for children's cognitive development, however these associations disappeared after adjusting for covariates including child, mother and family characteristics. Regardless of MDS and childcare type, boys had, even after adjusting for covariates, lower scores on academic readiness (sr2 = .029) and higher scores on mathematics achievement (sr2 = .004).

Conclusions: Children's cognitive development at school entry was more strongly associated with maternal education, children's age in kindergarten and number of months of schooling in first grade than MDS. Contrary to associations between MDS and child behavior problems, childcare attendance did not moderate associations between MDS and children's cognitive development at school entry.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Child
  • Child Care*
  • Child Development*
  • Child, Preschool
  • Cognition*
  • Cohort Studies
  • Depression / psychology*
  • Family Characteristics
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Male
  • Mathematics
  • Mother-Child Relations / psychology*
  • Mothers / psychology*
  • Reading
  • Schools
  • Sex Factors
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

The Fond de Recherche du Québec Santé (FRQS; http://www.frqsc.gouv.qc.ca/) supported this work through a salary award granted to CMH and a doctoral training award granted to CP. This work was also supported through grants (412-2000-1003, 839-2000-1008) from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC; http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/) to RET, MB, and JRS, grant 412-94-0016 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC; http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/) to RET, and grant EC-0307 from Fonds pour la formation des chercheurs et l'aide à la recherche (FCAR; http://www.frqsc.gouv.qc.ca/) to RET. JRS is supported by the Fonds Monique Gaumond pour la recherche en maladies affectives. Funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The larger Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD) was also supported by funding from the Quebec provincial government’s ministère de la Famille and ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement supérieur, the Lucie and André Chagnon Foundation, the Institut de la statistique du Québec, the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST), the Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine Research Center and theMinistère de la Santé et des Services sociaux du Québec.