ADHD Linked to Depression, Poor Health in Moms

Depressed, anxious moms are more likely to have a child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Depressed, anxious moms are more likely to have a child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a new study finds.

The new study implies “that the diagnoses and health care utilization that a mother receives prior to having her child is predictive of having a child who is diagnosed with ADHD,” said G. Thomas Ray, lead author, who works in the research division at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California.

“The mothers of children who are diagnosed with ADHD are more likely to be diagnosed with health conditions such as depression and anxiety disorder and use more health services in the year prior to, and the two years after, the birth of their child, than mothers of children without ADHD or the mothers of children with asthma.”

What is not clear, however, is whether the effects are due to biological, environmental or psychosocial factors — or some combination of these. The diagnosis of ADHD today is not medical but behavioral.

A 1985 study from the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry “identified poor maternal health during pregnancy, young age of mothers, previous miscarriage, first pregnancy, prematurity, long labor and toxemia as maternal factors that significantly differentiated children with ADHD from controls,” noted Sam Goldstein, Ph.D., editor of the Journal of Attention Disorders.