Study finds when parents are depressed may shape children’s mental health for decades

By Hugo Francisco de SouzaReviewed by Susha Cheriyedath, M.Sc.Apr 14 2026

A 30-year study suggests that when children are exposed to parental depression may matter as much as whether they are exposed at all, with pregnancy emerging as a key window for maternal effects and mid-childhood for paternal ones.

Study: Timing of Exposure to Parental Depression From Pregnancy to Young Adulthood and Mental Health in Adult Offspring. Image Credit: N Universe / Shutterstock

In a recent comprehensive longitudinal study published in JAMA Network Open, researchers analyzed data from more than 5,000 adult offspring to investigate whether the timing of children’s exposure to parental depression was associated with mental health outcomes decades later. Study findings revealed that cumulative exposure to both maternal and paternal depression was associated with higher odds of anxiety and depression in adulthood.

Most notably, the results highlighted a unique sensitive period during pregnancy: maternal depression during late pregnancy was found to be associated with psychotic symptoms in adult children. In contrast, paternal outcomes emerged more prominently during mid-childhood. These findings imply that separate, parent-specific, potentially biological and environmental mechanisms influence offspring mental health outcomes.

Parental Depression and Sensitive Periods Background

Decades of psychiatric and psychological research have shown that parental depression is a major risk factor for mental illness in children. However, recent reviews highlight that this research has predominantly focused on either the immediate postpartum period or specific stages of childhood.

While useful in informing pediatric care, these temporal snapshots fail to identify potential “sensitive periods”, windows of time where the developing brain is particularly vulnerable to external stress, or differentiate between the influences of maternal and paternal depression on later-life offspring mental health outcomes.

Furthermore, the hitherto unresolved "nature vs. nurture" debate often complicates research findings, as studies cannot always fully distinguish whether an offspring’s mental health challenges are attributable to their shared genetics or the environment of growing up with a depressed parent.

Parental Depression Study Design and Measures

The present study aimed to examine how the timing of exposure to parental depression was associated with offspring’s adult-life mental health outcomes, while accounting for the genetic risk profiles of both the mothers and their children.

The study leveraged long-term data (September 1990 to July 2020) from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a British cohort comprising records of 5,329 adult offspring (61.5% female), followed from conception to age 27.

Study exposure (depression) was measured using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), a 10-item survey where higher scores indicate more severe symptoms, repeatedly over two decades. Mothers were assessed at 12 time points, from 18 weeks' gestation through to the child’s 21st birthday. Fathers (biological partners) were assessed at 10 time points.

The study focused on four primary clinical (psychiatric) outcomes in the adult offspring: 1. Depression at age 27, 2. Anxiety at age 25, 3. Psychotic experiences at age 24 and 4. Alcohol use disorder (AUD) at age 22. Additionally, the study incorporated participants’ socioeconomic data and maternal-offspring polygenic risk scores (PRS) as covariates.

Statistical analyses employed distribution lag models (DLMs) to identify which years of exposure contributed most to observed outcomes.

Pregnancy and Mid-Childhood Associations Findings

The study’s most striking finding was that maternal depression during pregnancy, specifically at 32 weeks' gestation, was statistically associated with a 20% increase in the odds of the child experiencing psychotic symptoms in their 20s (Adjusted Odds Ratio [AOR], 1.20, p < 0.05). Notably, this association remained significant even after accounting for the child’s own genetic risk for schizophrenia.

Furthermore, the study revealed that maternal symptoms from late pregnancy through age 18 were associated with offspring’s increased risk of depression (2.36-fold increase), while maternal symptoms from 8 months postpartum onward were associated with higher odds of anxiety (2.58-fold increase).

In contrast, paternal depression during pregnancy was not found to demonstrate a significant association with any of the four mental health outcomes investigated in the study. Parental contributions to offspring depression and anxiety were only observed to become significant when the child reached age five (mid-childhood) and grew stronger as the child entered young adulthood.

Specifically, offspring exposed to paternal depression across the 20-year period were 2.13 times more likely to experience depression themselves (p < 0.05). Unexpectedly, the study failed to identify a statistically significant link between parental depression and AUD in the offspring. However, this may suggest that substance use may follow a different developmental path or be influenced by other external factors.

Maternal and Paternal Mental Health Implications

This study shows that the timing of associations between parental mental health and offspring psychiatric outcomes differs between mother and father.

Study findings imply that the maternal link to psychosis may begin during pregnancy, suggesting that this association could reflect biological mechanisms such as synaptogenesis, the peak period of synapse formation in the fetal brain. In contrast, the mid-childhood emergence of paternal influence suggests that these exposures may be more closely associated with environmental pathways, potentially involving social modeling mechanisms.

Together, these findings highlight that while pregnancy and early life represent a critical window in the association between parental depression and later severe psychiatric outcomes (e.g., psychosis) in offspring, parental mental health support should extend beyond the "first 1,000 days" to ensure the best possible adult-life mental health outcomes for their children.