How You Hold Your Baby Tells Whether You're Depressed

re: How You Hold Your Baby Tells Whether You're Depressed

RachelZ — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:35:30 GMT

I am ambidexterous, but I write with my left and and my left leg is the one I lead with when going down (but not up) a flight of stairs. Since Jillian's room and changing table is upstairs, I tend to hold her in my right arm. I also sling the diaper bag over my right arm, which makes for quite a handful.

But depressed? No. Pregnancy hormones actually chilled me out quite a bit and I can feel the crazies trying to come back now - 13 months later. I should be pregnant all the time, I guess.

re: How You Hold Your Baby Tells Whether You're Depressed

Mom2Two — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:40:58 GMT

I'm righthanded and I hold phones with my right hand and hold my baby with my right arm. I always thought it was because my right arm, as the dominant side, is stronger. I have suffered immensely from depression though, so who knows? It just seems a weird thing to connect...baby holding with PPD...

re: How You Hold Your Baby Tells Whether You're Depressed

Karen Murphy — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:53:11 GMT

Mamame: good point. I thought about the breastfeeding thing, too, which if you take that into account seems to even things out quite a bit. But I decided, and this is purely my own theory, that what they meant was that say someone hands you your baby -- which direction do you most naturally tend to hold him toward? That's the direction I went with, which for me was to the right.

re: How You Hold Your Baby Tells Whether You're Depressed

mamame — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:45:44 GMT

I dunno. That seems pretty iffy to me. My right boob was way more productive than the left, so baby spent a lot more time cradled on the right ... (and I wasn't overly anxious.)

re: How You Hold Your Baby Tells Whether You're Depressed

alexis — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 18:03:01 GMT

Bizarre. I, like you, am right-handed and hold my baby to the right. I didn't think I felt stressed or anxious but, now that you mention it...

I have to say that there is a plus, as I am becoming ambidexterous.

re: How You Hold Your Baby Tells Whether You're Depressed

Karen Murphy — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 17:37:40 GMT

Michele: you're awfully close, actually; there were 78 women in the study. It would have helped had I put in the link to the article. It's up now. My bad.

re: How You Hold Your Baby Tells Whether You're Depressed

Michele — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 17:31:25 GMT

I would like them to define "small study". Was it all the women at one baby shower?

I feel like they use the term "study" in a headline like it was a sweeping project, and then in the detail you hear that it was "37 out of 71 people who took part in the study..." So if even the researchers are refrring to it as "small", it was probably done at someone's kitchen table.