Objective  To explore the association between maternal postpartum depression and infant’s early development.

  Methods  Totally 1 251 mother-child pairs were recruited in Maternal and Child Health Care Center of Hecheng district of Huaihua municipality between January 2015 and December 2016. Maternal depression was assessed using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) at 42-day and 6-month after delivery; infant development was assessed with the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ-C) at 6-month; and physical development indicators were also measured.

  Results  Of the mothers, 17.03% reported depressive symptoms at 42-day after delivery, as did 4.32% at 6-month. The domain scores of communication, problem solving, and personal-social and total score of ASQ-C of the infants with mothers reporting depression symptoms at 42-day postpartum were all lower than those of the infants with mothers not reporting depression symptoms (P < 0.01 for all); the score of gross motor of the infants with mothers reporting depression symptoms at 6-month was lower than that of the infants with mothers not reporting depression symptoms (P < 0.05). But there were no differences in physical development indicators between the infants with and without mothers reporting depression symptoms at 42-day and 6-month (P > 0.05 for all). Logistic regression analyses revealed that maternal postnatal depression at 42-day was a significant risk factor for developmental retardation of infants at 6-month (odds ratio OR = 2.655, 95% confidence interval 95% CI: 1.843 – 3.825), but maternal postnatal depression at 6-month was not significantly associated with infants’ development (OR = 1.776, 95% CI: 0.859 – 3.671).

  Conclusion  Maternal postnatal depression has adverse impacts on infants’ development; postnatal health education should be conducted among pregnant women during pregnancy and postpartum to prevent postpartum depression.