The Effect of Postpartum Depression on Infant Feeding Practice in Sub-Saharan African Countries: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Abstract

Background: Postpartum depression (PND) is a type of mood disorder that affects women after childbirth. Despite the detailed research related to these maternal and infant health outcomes, the relationship between postpartum depression and infant breastfeeding remains ambiguous. Hence, the aim of this study was to assess the effect of maternal postpartum depression on infant feeding practice in Sub-Saharan African Countries.Method: This systematic review and meta-analysis was reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis. PubMed, Google Scholar, Science Direct and Cochrane Library were systematically searched for relevant articles. STATA version 14 was used to calculate the pooled effect size with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) of postpartum depression on infant feeding practice using the DerSimonian and Laird random effects meta-analysis. The heterogeneity and publication bias was assessed by using I2 test statistics and Egger’s test respectively.Result: Total of 1058 published and unpublished article were retrieved from different data bases. Finally four studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria for this systematic review and meta- analysis. This meta-analysis found that postpartum depression has no significant effect on the infant feeding practices (OR = 0.46, 95% CI: 0.18, 1.14).Conclusion: We did not find sufficient evidence to conclude the effect of postpartum depression on infant feeding practice. Thus, the investigators strongly recommend the researchers to conducted randomised control trail studies in Sub-Sahara African countries.