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. 2025 Aug 13;5(1):350.
doi: 10.1038/s43856-025-01062-8.

Associations of mental disorders with maternal health outcomes

Pallavi Dubey  1 , Alok Kumar Dwivedi  2   3 , Kunal Sharma  4 , Sarah L Martin  5 , Peter M Thompson  5 , Sireesha Y Reddy  1
Affiliations

Associations of mental disorders with maternal health outcomes

Pallavi Dubey et al. Commun Med (Lond). .

Abstract

Background: Mental disorders are highly prevalent during pregnancy and are associated with unfavorable obstetrical outcomes, including maternal mortality. This study examined specific and combined associations of mental disorders with maternal morbidities.

Methods: A cross-sectional study of all delivery hospitalizations between the ages of 12-55 years was conducted using the National Inpatient Sample data from 2017. The International Classification of Diseases-10 codes were used to define exposures including depressive, anxiety, post-traumatic stress (PTSD), sleep, and bipolar disorders, and outcomes including premature rupture of membranes (PROM), hydramnios, placental disorder, cesarean delivery, fetal death, preterm birth, and postpartum hemorrhage (PPH). Survey-weighted logistic regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the associations between mental disorders and obstetric outcomes after adjusting for age, race/ethnicity, household income, primary payer, smoking, alcohol use, substance use, and obesity.

Results: The analysis of 715,810 delivery hospitalizations, representing 3,579,046 deliveries in the US demonstrates that sleep disorder is associated with PROM (OR = 1.41; 95% CI: 1.13, 1.75), placental disorder (OR = 1.56; 95% CI: 1.24, 1.95), cesarean delivery (OR = 1.50; 95% CI: 1.36, 1.65), and PPH (OR = 1.36; 95% CI: 1.10, 1.68) to a greater extent than other mental disorders. However, depressive disorder is greatly associated with hydramnios (OR = 1.16; 95% CI: 1.08, 1.25) and fetal death (OR = 1.38; 95% CI: 1.18, 1.61), while PTSD (OR = 1.40; 95% CI: 1.19, 1.64) is associated with preterm birth than other mental disorders.

Conclusions: Most mental disorders are independently associated with critical obstetric outcomes, with the extent of associations depending on specific obstetric outcomes. The study findings indicate the need for mandatory screening and management of mental health conditions in routine obstetrical care to improve maternal and child health outcomes.

Plain language summary

Preexisting mental disorders are associated with adverse maternal outcomes. However, the associations of common mental disorders and their co-occurrence with specific maternal outcomes, independent of pregnancy complications such as hypertension and diabetes, are unclear. We analyzed a large National Inpatient Sample database representing United States hospitalizations and showed that individual mental disorders and the presence of multiple mental disorders are strongly associated with multiple obstetric outcomes, independent of pregnancy complications such as hypertension and diabetes. This study indicates the need for screening and management of mental disorders during obstetrical care to improve maternal health and child outcomes.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Adjusted associations between mental disorders and obstetric outcomes (n = 715,810).
a Adjusted association of each mental disorder with each obstetric outcome after adjusting for age, race/ethnicity, household income, primary payer, smoking, alcohol use, substance use, and obesity. b Adjusted association of all mental disorders with each obstetric outcome after adjusting for other mental disorders, age, race/ethnicity, household income, primary payer, smoking, alcohol use, substance use, and obesity. OR odds ratio, CI confidence interval, PROM premature rupture of membranes, PPH postpartum hemorrhage, PTSD post-traumatic stress disorder.
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