www.telegraph.co.uk
By Rebecca Smith

Mothers who hold their baby on the right are suffering from stress that could lead to post-natal depression, scientists have found.


Health visitors and doctors could use the sign to help them detect mothers who are not coping well in the months after giving birth.

The study, carried out at Durham University, found that of mothers who expressed no signs of stress or depression in the survey, 86 per cent preferred to hold their babies to the left.

But cradling babies to the right was more prominent among stressed mothers, with 32 per cent showing a right-sided bias.

The mothers were interviewed in their home and asked to pick up their baby. They then completed a survey about their feelings and mental well-being.

Dr Nadja Reissland, the psychologist behind the study, said the results had nothing to do with whether the mother was left or right-handed.

She told The Daily Telegraph: “When mothers are stressed, they pick the baby up and hold it on the right side of their bodies.”

At least one in 10 women suffer from post-natal depression, yet many go undiagnosed as they are unwilling or unable to get help.

Dr Reissland said at first she wanted to discover if the pitch of a mother’s voice when she spoke to the baby was connected to stress. She found that mothers who cradled the baby on the left side spoke in a lower pitch and were less stressed.

First-time mother Rachelle Mason said she had to deal with stress after her son, Sam, who is eight months’ old, was born but had not felt it get out of control.

The 29-year-old from Durham, who works in news production, said: “I am right-handed but it is just instinctive to hold him on the left. It just feels right. I have tried holding him on my right side to see what it’s like and it feels wrong and uncomfortable somehow.”

The study, published today in the online version of the Journal Of Child Psychology And Psychiatry, looked at 79 mothers and their babies, who were an average age of seven months.

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