Clinical and psychosocial correlates of antenatal depression: a review

Abstract

In contrast to the considerable research on postnatal depression, less attention has been paid to that occurring during pregnancy-antenatal depression (AD). However, recent investigations have studied depression among pregnant women not necessarily requiring psychiatric hospitalization but needing psychological support and help. A controlled study showed that the rate of AD was significantly higher than that of depression among non-pregnant women: the reported incidence varies between 4 and 29%. AD was found to be associated with: (1) obstetric factors (first pregnancy, first delivery, and past history of abortion); (2) early experience (loss of father); (3) personality (high neuroticism score); (4) attitudes towards the present pregnancy (perplexity of the husband); (5) accomodation factors (non-detached housing, and expected crowdedness after birth of the child, and (6) social support (low level of intimacy with the husband). Differential effects of these factors in the development of AD are to be studied in future research, particularly in conjunction with investigation of hormonal variables.