Postnatal depressive symptoms in women with and without antenatal depressive symptoms: results from a prospective cohort study

Abstract

Evidence exists that the risk factors for depression in the antenatal and postnatal period may differ, but only a handful of studies looked at depression longitudinally. The aims of this study were (1) to estimate the prevalence of postnatal depressive symptoms in Kuwait where data about postnatal depression are scarce and identify its determinants and (2) to compare these risk factors between women who had experienced antenatal depressive symptoms and those that did not. Data collected in the TRansgenerational Assessment of Children's Environmental Risk (TRACER) Study in Kuwait were used in this analysis. The sample was restricted to the 1348 women who answered the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) both antenatally and postnatally. The prevalence of postnatal depressive symptoms, defined by an EPDS score ≥ 10, was 11.7%. Overall, antenatal depressive symptoms were the strongest determinant of postnatal depressive symptoms. Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that in women with depressive symptoms in pregnancy, having a lower household income was the most significant risk factor for postnatal depressive symptoms. Among women without antenatal depressive symptoms, those who had lower income, were Kuwaitis, experienced other problems in pregnancy such as perceived stress, PTSD symptoms and social isolation, and those who delivered a boy had higher odds of postnatal depressive symptoms. Antenatal depressive symptoms and other psychosocial characteristics can predict postnatal depressive symptoms. Therefore, maternal mental health issues should be detected during the antenatal period and support should be provided in order to lower the risk of postnatal depression and its sequelae.

Spanish validation and factor structure of the Birth Satisfaction Scale-Revised (BSS-R)

“…Similarly, in relation to the S-BSS-R SE sub-scale women experiencing an unassisted delivery scored significantly higher compared to those receiving an intervention, thus, and again consistent with other studies (Fleming et al, 2016;Hollins Martin and Martin, 2014;Jefford et al, 2018), indicating that assisted delivery is associated with less satisfaction and more stress. Given the relationship of stress as a fundamental component to distinct perinatal mental health presentations, ranging from postpartum posttraumatic stress disorder (Ali, 2018;Dikmen-Yildiz et al, 2017;Shlomi Polachek et al, 2016), tokophobia (Goutaudier et al, 2018;Striebich et al, 2018) and postnatal depression (Dennis et al, 2018;Pampaka et al, 2018), this finding yields valuable data regarding the potential implications of delivery type on psychological well-being and the development of psychiatric disturbance. Focusing upon the S-BSS-R QC sub-scale we noted that women who had an assisted delivery were significantly less satisfied in terms of quality of care received compared to those who had an unassisted delivery.…”

Maternal and birth cohort studies in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…The 81 cohort studies were published between 1990 in Saudi Arabia [40,79] and 2019 in Kuwait [41], Qatar [42,60,61], and Saudi Arabia [80]. The size of the cohorts ranged from 23 pregnant women with a known diagnosis of idiopathic thrombocytopenic in Saudi Arabia [62] to 158,006 delivering mothers in Kuwait [81].…”

“…Thirty-four cohort studies (42.0%) were identified as a prospective design (19 in [81], and three in the UAE). Fiftytwo (64.2%) cohort studies enrolled pregnant mothers at varying stages of their pregnancy with different characteristics such as diabetic and non-diabetic mothers [26,67], obesity [42,47,54], singleton [41,48,99] or triplet pregnancies [91], teenage women [112], multipara women [82,86,98], and women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) [27]. Eight studies (9.9%) enrolled pregnant mothers at varying stages after delivery [24,49,58,59,81,84,88,99].…”

“…,43-50, 56, 57, 62-72, 79, 80, 82-98, 105-112], followed by eight (9.9%) in Kuwait[20,21,24,41,51,73,81,99], seven (8.6%) in each of Qatar[42,52,53,60,61,74,113] and the UAE[58, 59, 75-77, 100, 101], six (7.4%) in Oman…”

The pregnancy intention to have a second child and antenatal depressive symptoms in Chinese women under the new two-child-per-couple policy

“…Antenatal depression which can occur in any time during pregnancy, has been considered as a major public health problem. The consequences of antenatal depression may be severe and far-reaching, negatively affecting the mother and infant [1,2], including the increased risk of perinatal complications, adverse perinatal outcomes [3], and adverse effects on the development of infant cognition, behavior, emotion and intellectual [4].Evidence has shown that 50% postpartum depression begins at antenatal period [5], and antenatal depression is the most effective predictive factor for postpartum depression [6]. However, due to some physiological symptoms of pregnancy are overlapped with the antenatal depressive symptoms, it is difficult to well recognize the antenatal depressive symptoms [7].…”