perinatal depression in a cohort study of Iranian women

Introduction: Childbearing years in the women’s life are associated with the highest risk of depression. Despite the results of some studies that suggested, depression during pregnancy has been associated with poor prenatal care, substance abuse, low birth weight, and preterm delivery and introduced antenatal depression and anxiety as predictors of postnatal depression, researches during past 25 years have focused mostly on postpartum depression so depression during pregnancy is relatively neglected. Materials and methods: We studied depression during third trimester of pregnancy and after delivery, using prospectively gathered data from a cohort of 1898 women. We compared depressive symptom score and the proportion of mothers above a threshold, to indicate probable depressive disorder at each stage. Results: Point prevalence of depressed pregnant women (clinical depression) based on BDI score greater than 20 in last trimester of pregnancy, was 22.8% and postnatal rate of depression based on EPD score greater than 12 between 6 to 8 weeks after delivery, was 26.3%. Incidence of PPD in 6 to 8 weeks after delivery in those who were not clinically depressed during pregnancy was, 20.1%. Discussion: We found that history of depression, unplanned pregnancy; being housewife and having 3 or more children were variables with significant relation to ante partum depression. Two main risk factors for post partum depression in this cohort study, were previous history of depression and depression during current pregnancy that highlight the importance of these two variables assessment during pregnancy in order to facilitate timely identification of women at risk.