Can my baby read my mind? Or, is a mother's mood transferred to her baby?

As most parents know, it's hard not to compare your kids to each other.  Since I now have a 5 month old, I keep finding myself comparing her habits to those of her older sisters (2 1/2 and 4 1/2).

Even to the most casual observer, it's obvious that my oldest daughter is more -- how do we say? -- high-strung than the other two.  She had colic as an infant, and has always had a very strong-willed personality.  My middle girl, on the other hand, was an easy baby and, while she's horribly stubborn, she's much more laid-back than her older sister. My baby seems to be taking after my middle girl; she's the easiest baby of all three, and is happy and, for the most part, content. 

What has me wondering right now is the old wisdom that an anxious parent makes an anxious kid.  My mom used to tell me so often, "Oh, she [the baby] is picking up on your mood, that's why she's upset," that I started thinking the kid could read my mind.  I'd get upset when I had a bad thought, thinking that she could hear it, like some sort of infant seer or something.  This was especially true with my first daughter, because I had horrible postpartum depression and anxiety for the better part of six months after she was born.  I've always kind of wondered if this has made her a more anxious kid, prone to more difficult behavior.

On the other hand, I had pretty bad postpartum depression after my third daughter, plus major depression while pregnant, and she seems to be mellow and happy.  So maybe the prevailing wisdom is more of an old wives' tale than anything else.

Out of curiosity, I started looking online (because I know that if someone has thought about a topic, there's gotta be something online about it) for studies or information on the whole parent-to-kid anxiety/depression idea.  I found a few studies, but there wasn't overwhelming information.  Interestingly, most studies came from the UK, which leads me to wonder if maybe the US is a little behind with this area of research.  Here's what I found:

An article from USA Today about how anxiety and depression can pass from adults to kids, both genetically and through environment.  It centers more on adolescents and teenagers rather than babies, and discussess the benefits of CBT for kids.  

A posting on PsychCentral.com about the difference between normal perinatal anxiety and obsessive perinatal anxiety, but nothing really about how either kind affects the baby.

A few articles from Science Daily talking about sleep behavior in babies with depressed or anxious parents, relating babies' poor sleep to their parents' moods.  ("Babies Born to Women with Anxiety or Depression are More Likely to Sleep Poorly", and "Maternal Depression is Associated with Significant Sleep Disturbance in Infants")

Another article from Science Daily about how maternal postpartum depression is linked to depression in children, even into their teen years,

I went to the JAMA website (Journal of the American Medical Association) to see if they had any studies related to the issue.  I couldn't find too much, other than a lot of stuff about DHA and how it affects depression and anxiety. So if you want to know about fish oil, hit JAMA.

I'm not really sure what to take away from my very rudimentary research; it sounds like maybe there is a link between maternal anxiety and depression and that of the kids, but it's not hugely researched or documented.

I'm still sure my baby can't read my mind, though.  Well, somewhat sure.  A little sure.

Okay, I'm not sure at all.

Bipolar pregnancy

I started this blog while I was pregnant and having serious mental health issues.  One of the most frustrating problems I faced was a complete lack of information about mental health during pregnancy.  There's a ton of information -- both online and in print -- about postpartum depression and mental illness in the postpartum period, which is a good thing, but very little information about mental illness while one is actually pregnant.

There are a couple of books on Amazon.com that discuss having bipolar disorder during pregnancy:  Bipolar and Pregnant..., and Ride at Your Own Risk...   The first is more about managing your bipolar disorder before you get pregnant (therefore avoiding problems during pregnancy), and the second seems to be more of a personal memoir.  Both also suffer from the "way too long title" disease.  There is a good book called Pregnancy Blues that addresses mental illness during pregnancy, but it's written by a doctor and it's a little inaccessible to the Average Josephine.

With all this lack of information, I was initially excited to see a new article posted at psychcentral.com titled "Pregnancy Planning for Women with Bipolar Disorder."  The article has good information about how to talk to your doctor about your Bipolar Disorder and pregnancy, what drugs to stay away from, and what drugs may be less effective with birth control (and what drugs make birth control less effective).

Of course, my excitement flagged a little when I realized the article that it is about planning, and not about what to do once you're pregnant (yes, that's what the title says, so I shouldn't have been surprised). Out of curiosity, I did a search on "bipolar pregnancy" on Psych Central, and it yielded exactly two results:  the aforementioned article, and something about teen marriage.  I understand that pregnant women with bipolar disorder are probably a small population, but shouldn't there be something for them?  I was one of them, and it may have helped if I found even just one piece of information about how to deal.  In the world of the internet, where every tiny little personality quirk and population is indulged, how is this population being ignored?

The "Pregnant" in" Pregnant Bipolar Knitter"

I haven't talked too much about the "pregnant" in my blog title, mainly because other than the rampant depression/psychological problems I've had, the pregnancy has been healthy and uneventful.

Today, though, it's hard to ignore. I've been in the "PicU" (which I think stands for perinatal intensive care unit) since yesterday. My due date isn't until April 17, but I started getting pretty regular contractions last week. I've been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for about two months, but these were different. I came down to Labor & Delivery on Friday night, and they ran a few tests and checked me for dilation; despite the fact that I was 1 cm dilated (admittedly, not much) and 50% effaced, the doc on call opted not to do the fetal fibronectin test which can give an idea if you are going to go into labor soon or at least not for the next two weeks.

(Note that the doc on call was the doc that delivered my first daughter...which is a whole other story, but I told the nurse that I would drive home and have my baby there rather than have him ever touch me again. But I digress.)

Anyway, yesterday the contractions started getting stronger and more painful. My ob told me to come down to get checked, and lo and behold I was now 2 cm dilated AND the fetal fibronectin test was positive. So my doctor admitted me and started me on a course of muscle relaxers to halt the contractions and steroids to help the baby's development. They'd like to delay at least a few weeks. Seems like things are going according to plan, as the contractions are getting better. Hopefully I get to go home tomorrow.

That's my current story. I will say that the maternity ward is far preferrable to the psych ward; they don't care if I have ballpoint pens or drawstrings, AND I have internet access. Life is good (well, other than the fact I'm in the hospital).

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