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Background: Maternal depression is a major determinant of offspring mental health. Yet, little is understood about how the duration and timing of maternal depression shapes youth risk for depressive symptoms, which if understood could inform when best to intervene. This study aimed to determine how the timing and duration of maternal depression was related to offspring depression in emerging adulthood, and if these associations varied by sex. Methods: We analysed data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (a prenatal cohort in the Avon area of England, 1991–2003), n = 3,301. We applied the structured lifecourse modelling approach to maternal depression (assessed at 13 points from prenatal period to adolescence) and emerging adult depressive symptoms (age 21). Lifecourse models assessed were accumulation (sum of timepoints when maternal depression was reported), sensitive periods (each period assessed as one during which maternal depression has a stronger effect) and instability (frequent fluctuations in maternal depression). Results: Female adolescents (n = 2,132) had higher SMFQ scores (mean = 6.15, SD = 5.90) than males (n = 1,169, mean = 4.87, SD = 4.82). Maternal depression was most common in the infancy period (21.2% males; 21.4% females). For males, accumulation was the most appropriate lifecourse model; for each additional period of maternal depression, depressive symptoms in emerging adulthood increased by 0.11 (95% CI: 0.07, 0.15, one‐sided p value ≤.001). For females, exposure to maternal depression was associated with increasing depressive symptoms in emerging adulthood, with the largest effect in mid‐childhood (increase of 0.27 units, 95% CI 0.03–0.50, p =.015 for difference between mid‐childhood and other time‐periods) and a smaller, equal effect at all other time‐periods (increase of 0.07 units per time‐period, 95% CI: 0.03–0.12, p =.002). Conclusions: This study highlights the importance of ongoing maternal depression for the development of depression in offspring through to emerging adulthood. Because long‐term exposure to maternal depression was particularly important, early interventions are warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Importance: Exposure to maternal psychosocial stressors during the prenatal and perinatal periods can have major long-term mental health consequences for children. However, valid and inexpensive biomarkers are currently unavailable to identify children who have been exposed to psychosocial stress and the buffers of stress exposure., Objective: To assess whether a growth mark in tooth enamel, the neonatal line, is associated with exposure to prenatal and perinatal maternal psychosocial factors., Design, Setting, and Participants: This prospective cohort study used exfoliated primary canine teeth and epidemiological survey data from 70 children enrolled in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a birth cohort based in Bristol, England. Exfoliated teeth were collected from children at 5 to 7 years of age. Data were collected from January 1, 1991, to December 31, 1998, and were analyzed from January 1, 2019, to August 10, 2021., Exposures: Four types of prenatal and perinatal maternal psychosocial factors were studied: stressful life events, psychopathological history, neighborhood disadvantage, and social support. Data were collected from mailed-in questionnaires completed during and shortly after pregnancy., Main Outcomes and Measures: Neonatal line width measured within 3 portions of the tooth crown (the cuspal, middle, and innermost third) in exfoliated primary canines., Results: A total of 70 children (34 of 70 [48.7%] male; 63 of 67 [94.0%] White) were studied. Most children were born full term (57 [83.8%]) and to mothers of typical child-bearing age (60 [88.2%]). Neonatal lines were wider in the canines of children born to mothers who self-reported severe lifetime depression (β = 3.35; 95% CI, 1.48-5.23; P = .001), any lifetime psychiatric problems (β = 2.66; 95% CI, 0.92-4.41; P = .003), or elevated anxiety or depressive symptoms at 32 weeks' gestation (β = 2.29; 95% CI, 0.38-4.20; P = .02). By contrast, neonatal lines were narrower in children born to mothers who self-reported high social support shortly after birth (β = -2.04; 95% CI, -3.70 to -0.38; P = .02). The magnitude of these associations was large, up to 1.2 SD unit differences, and persisted after adjusting for other risk factors., Conclusions and Relevance: In this cohort study, neonatal line width was associated with exposure to maternal perinatal psychosocial factors. Replication and validation of these findings can further evaluate teeth as possible new biomarkers.

Background: Emotion recognition skills are essential for social communication. Deficits in these skills have been implicated in mental disorders. Prior studies of clinical and high-risk samples have consistently shown that children exposed to adversity are more likely than their unexposed peers to have emotion recognition skills deficits. However, only one population-based study has examined this association., Methods: We analyzed data from children participating in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a prospective birth cohort (n = 6,506). We examined the association between eight adversities, assessed repeatedly from birth to age 8 (caregiver physical or emotional abuse; sexual or physical abuse; maternal psychopathology; one adult in the household; family instability; financial stress; parent legal problems; neighborhood disadvantage) and the ability to recognize facial displays of emotion measured using the faces subtest of the Diagnostic Assessment of Non-Verbal Accuracy (DANVA) at age 8.5 years. In addition to examining the role of exposure (vs. nonexposure) to each type of adversity, we also evaluated the role of the timing, duration, and recency of each adversity using a Least Angle Regression variable selection procedure., Results: Over three-quarters of the sample experienced at least one adversity. We found no evidence to support an association between emotion recognition deficits and previous exposure to adversity, either in terms of total lifetime exposure, timing, duration, or recency, or when stratifying by sex., Conclusions: Results from the largest population-based sample suggest that even extreme forms of adversity are unrelated to emotion recognition deficits as measured by the DANVA, suggesting the possible immutability of emotion recognition in the general population. These findings emphasize the importance of population-based studies to generate generalizable results., (© 2018 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.)