Depression, sleep quality, and body image disturbances among pregnant women in India: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: Pregnancy is associated with a number of physical, emotional, and biological changes that can exacerbate maternal psychological disturbances, such as body image concerns and depression. Sleep disturbances during pregnancy can also have adverse impacts. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of depression, sleep disturbances, and body image concerns among pregnant women. The study also examined the relationship between these factors and pregnancy-related variables, such as bad obstetric history and whether the pregnancies were unplanned.Methods: A cross-sectional study of 146 pregnant patients was conducted at a tertiary care center over 15 months. The patients were administered the Beck Depression Inventory, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and Body Image Concern Inventory questionnaires. Contingency tables, Fisher exact test, and Spearman correlation were used to identify underlying relationships.Results: The prevalence of depression was 22.6%. Although body image disturbance was noted in only 2.7% of patients, 46.6% had poor sleep quality. Poor sleep was associated with primigravida status. Bad obstetric history and unplanned pregnancy were associated with depression. Depression was found to be significantly correlated with body image disturbances and poor sleep quality. Conclusion: Psychiatric disorders were prevalent during pregnancy. This study highlights the importance of screening for depression in pregnant patients. Counselling and caregiver education can be useful for mitigating psychological disturbances. Management of pregnancies by multidisciplinary teams that include psychiatrists could be immensely useful in improving the pregnancy experiences of patients.

Melatonin improves maternal sleep deprivation‐induced learning and memory impairment, inflammation, and synaptic dysfunction in murine male adult offspring

“…With societal development, people's sleep patterns are disturbed by work load, frequent shift work, and the excessive use of electronic devices, including mobile phones and computers (Aldabal & Bahammam, 2011; Calamaro et al., 2009; Xie et al., 2020). Furthermore, during pregnancy, the sleep patterns change owing to pregnancy‐associated anatomical, physiological, and hormonal alterations (Kadam et al., 2023). These changes, combined with work load, increase the risk of sleep dysfunction in pregnant women, which could lead to several adverse consequences in their offspring.…”