Aims/Objectives: The study aims to investigate; The independent associations between antenatal and postnatal depression and maternal feelings of disordered attachment; Whether the disordered attachment feelings of mother-infant interactions are associated with child outcomes.

Importance: Depression is experienced by 10-15% of women during pregnancy and after birth. Both antenatal and postnatal depression has been associated with multiple negative mental health consequences for the child. Evidence suggests that postnatal maternal depression leads to these poorer outcomes, in part, through disruption to maternal behaviour and disordered mother-child relationships. Our recent investigations in ALSPAC also suggest that antenatal depression may disrupt preparations for motherhood and as such the mother-infant relationship after birth. It is therefore important to gain further insight as to how both antenatal and postnatal depression disrupts the mother-infant relationship. It is also important to understand which aspects of the mother-infant relationship are important to child development. Implications: Although, we would expect to find many mothers, who answered yes to the attachment feelings question, to have a high depressive symptom score, by coding the free text according to further categories, it will be possible to see if antenatal and postnatal depression relate to different aspects of disordered attachment feelings. In addition understanding which categories of disordered attachment feelings in the mother-infant relationship are important to the future development of the child