What is the effect of an untreated PND?

An untreated, depressed mother can, unintentionally but significantly, impact her children, due to the adversely affected mother-infant relationship: a depressed mother with her blank face and non-interactive mannerisms disengages from her baby’s cues, giving fewer positive and more negative responses to her infant; she finds managing a crying baby more difficult; and some depressed mothers can be insensitively rough or even hostile with their baby. Potentially, this has harmful effects on the emotional, cognitive (learning, memory, etc.) development, and social behaviour of the baby short- and long-term, with babies having higher rates of insecure attachment to mother, infant distress and reduced responsiveness.