Maternal depression is an important public health issue of concern, not only for the burden of illness on the mother herself, but also for the potential impact on children's mental health. A review of recent studies on maternal depression and child psychiatric disorders shows that maternal depression is significantly associated with childhood depressive disorders and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders. The theoretical bases of maternal depression and child mental disorders are fetal programming hypothesis, diathesis-stress model, and integrative model. The physiological mechanism of the intergenerational transmission of mental disorders is the change of genes, oxytocin, cortisol, and galvanic skin response by the mother's depression in children, and the psychological mechanisms are the cognitive dysfunction and emotional disorders in children.