Can Grandparents Protect Against Perinatal Depression?

The importance of social and partner support on maternal mental health has been well-established, but what about intergenerational support? That’s a topic that remains underexplored in the setting of perinatal depression (PND).

Grandparents play an important role in family dynamics. These older adults often pitch in to help with caregiving challenges and promote optimal social-cognitive development in children, especially with recent reports on the rise of mental health problems in mothers.

With these shifts in mind, Riem and colleagues recently explored the role of grandparents in a clinical setting, and whether their support can buffer the effects of PND or protect against its development.¹ Data were drawn from an Australian pregnancy cohort study and included 725 women, 230 (31.7%) of whom met criteria for major depression.

Mediating the risk for PND

At one year after birth, mothers reported on grandparental geographical proximity and hours of grandparental childcare support by completing the Postpartum Social Support Questionnaire.¹ While Riem and colleagues hypothesized that lack of grandparental support would increase the likelihood of a mother developing PND, their results did not bear out this finding. Mothers who had no prior history of PND did not seem to be negatively affected by the absence of grandparental care.

“In contrast to our expectations, there were no significant differences in grandparental practical and perceived support and geographical proximity in mothers with and without PND, thus indicating that a lack of grandparental support is not associated with increased risk for PND,” the authors wrote in the Journal of Affective Disorders.¹ While mothers who reported perceiving grandparental support experienced less-severe depressive symptoms, this outcome was seen only among those previously diagnosed with PND.

Supportive grandparents provide protection

In a prior meta-analysis, Riem and colleagues highlighted a noteworthy relationship between grandparental support and maternal postpartum health.² Here, in the current study, they built upon this work, pointing out that assistance from grandparents might serve as a protective factor against depression in all mothers, regardless of prior mental health status.¹

To support this hypothesis, they assessed parenting difficulties and depressive symptoms with the Parenting Stress Index and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Higher levels of perceived grandparental support were linked with lower overall parenting stress. This finding suggests that grandparental involvement—when well-received—may lower the burden of parenting and help foster a healthy childrearing environment.

Riem and colleagues point out that perceived support—rather than geographical proximity or practical childcare support—made the greatest difference for maternal mental health in this study.

“One explanation for this unexpected finding is that the quality of the intergenerational relationship may matter for mothers,” they offered, cautioning that conflict-prone relationships may only add to maternal stress. Indeed, the authors suggest that not all grandparenting relationships are created equal; for instance, close proximity to grandparents can become a burden when the intergenerational relationship causes more problems than not.

What about the generation in between?

Mothers with a prior PND diagnosis who perceived support from their own parents, but not their partner’s parents, also experienced less-severe depressive symptoms.¹ These results align with the authors’ prior work, which highlighted a connection between grandparental support on the mother’s side and better maternal postpartum mental health.²

“One explanation for the finding that maternal grandparents matter most for depressed mothers’ mental health is that mothers may feel closer to their own parents and may feel more comfortable in the presence of their own parents,” the authors wrote.¹ Interestingly, geographical proximity to maternal grandparents was linked with worse depressive symptoms in mothers with prior PND, perhaps because these women have a greater need for support from their parents and therefore choose to live close to them.

Although the current study had some limitations, including its reliance on self-reports from a single time point postpartum, future studies, Riem and colleagues urge, should use longitudinal designs and explore the effectiveness of involving grandparents in interventions for perinatal mental health. In addition, because support in the current study did not measure support from grandmothers versus grandfathers, new research might focus on this distinction.

Published: September 23, 2024