Depression in women after perinatal death

Abstract

Post-partum depression was studied with the Beck inventory during a 6-month period in two groups of over 300 women. The difference in prevalence of depression between women who had had live births and women whose babies were stillborn or died in the first 7 days of life was influenced by age. At 6 months, post-partum depression was just as common in women aged under 24 whose babies had survived as in women of the same age whose babies had died.