This is absolutely the last thing mothers need to hear when they are struggling, especially during the current pandemic. Not to mention the lack of any evidence to back it up. (THREAD)

The study mentioned in this report has not been published or peer-reviewed, so we have no way of telling how robust these findings might be. In the accompanying @ECNPtweets press release, the researchers themselves acknowledge the need to repeat w/larger sample size to confirm.

Regardless, this was not a longitudinal study, and there is nothing in these preliminary findings to support the @mailonline’s claims that babies are “scarred for life” or left with an emotional imprint due to their mother’s anxiety or depression.

We don’t need studies like this to understand that postnatal depression has a devastating impact. Last year’s @MBRRACE report found, yet again, that the biggest killer of UK mothers in the year immediately after birth is suicide.

Now more than ever, new mothers need support. Articles like this achieve exactly the opposite.