Fathers who suffer from PND are more likely to have teenage daughters with mental health problems

Fathers who suffer from postnatal depression are more likely to have girls who experience mental health problems in their teens, the researchers said.

Research increasingly shows that child birth can cause depression between men and women.

Up to 10 percent of men report these symptoms compared to about 20 percent of mothers.

Now it has been linked to poor adolescent mental health by researching 3,000 families from all over Bristol.

Girls are more likely to suffer from depression at age 18 if their father experiences it after their birth.

Children, however, were found not affected, according to researchers from the universities of Cambridge, Bristol, Oxford, and Imperial and UCL in London.

Writing in the medical journal JAMA Psychiatry, the authors say, "We have found girls with fathers with depression during the postnatal period at risk of depression after puberty, but such risks are not seen in boys."

The researchers believe this could happen because girls may be more sensitive to the way their father interacts with them as babies, with long-term results.

For boys this seems to have only short-term effects, they said.

A father's depression is also likely to trigger conditions among mothers, with a knock-on effect on girls, the researchers said.

Professor Paul Ramchandani, from Cambridge University, said: & # 39; Research from family studies in Bristol has shown that fathers can experience depression in the postnatal and maternal periods.

& # 39; What's new in this paper is that we can follow up young people from birth to 18 years of age.

"It seems that depression in fathers is associated with an increase in stress levels throughout the family, and that this might be one way in which offspring can be affected."

He said the study highlighted the importance of helping depressed fathers.