Predictors of postpartum depression in a sample of Egyptian women

Abstract

IntroductionPostpartum depression (PPD) represents a considerable health problem affecting women and their families. The aims of this study were to: (a) compare female patients with PPD to normal controls with regard to some biopsychosocial variables, (b) correlate between the severity of PPD and some clinical and biological variables, and (c) to predict some risk factors for PPD.MethodSixty female patients with PPD were compared with 60 healthy postpartum females (control group). Patient and controls were subjected to: (1) a complete psychiatric and obstetric examination, (2) psychometric studies using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, Fahmy and El-Sherbini’s Social Classification Scale for Egyptian socioeconomic classification and Horowitz et al’s Impact of Event Scale, (3) quantities of thyroid hormone (T3), cortisol hormone, and estrogen were assessed.ResultsThere were high statistical differences between PPD females and controls as regard psychosocial stressors, level of (estradiol, thyroxin [T3], and cortisol), marital status, residence, parity, method of delivery, complicated puerperium, positive history of premenstrual tension syndrome and baby variables (eg, unwelcomed, with a negative attitude of parents toward the baby, underweight, female, artificially feeding, unhealthy baby). While there were moderate statistical differences in attitude toward spouse and social support and mild statistical difference in socioeconomic status between them. Severity of depression is positively highly correlated with onset of depression, psychosocial stress, levels of T3 and cortisol. However, severity of depression is negatively high when correlated with socioeconomic status. Stepwise linear regression indicated that PPD was significantly predicted by social support, socioeconomic status, feeding of baby, and prior psychiatric problems.ConclusionMany factors may lead to development of PPD. These factors include some psychosocial, socioeconomic, obstetric, and hormonal variables. Early detection of these factors could help in prediction of the development of PPD.

Cross-Cultural Approach of Postpartum Depression: Manifestation, Practices Applied, Risk Factors and Therapeutic Interventions

“…A systematic review in six African countries [24] showed incidence rates of the disease from 3.7 to 20.9 % in Nigeria, 5.6 to 20.1 % in Morocco, 3.2 to 6.9 % to The Gambia, 34.7 to 48 % in South Africa, 12 % in Ethiopia and 10 to 43 % in Uganda [24,70]. In Egypt, the disease showed a prevalence of 17.9 % [22].…”

“…The woman gets hot meals and avoids cold foods and beverages. The woman gets strong criticism by her husband and his family after the birth of a female child which may even lead to a divorce [18,22].…”

“…According to the literature review, the absence of postnatal social support and the personal history of psychiatric disorders, particularly of depression, seem to be the main predisposing factors, significantly contributing to the occurrence of the disease in many Western and nW-countries [7,8,21,22,25,26,86,91,93,100,105,108,116,117,123,125,[139][140][141][142][143]. Additional common predisposing factors according to bibliography are low income and financial difficulties [21,23,98,116,144], free marital status [24,70,93,109,134,140,144,145], prenatal mood disorders [21,90,93,105,108], unwanted or unplanned pregnancy [21][22][23][24]89], poor marital and intrafamilial relationships [21,…”

“…The most common of these factors include a family or personal history of depression before pregnancy, low income, poor social support, poor intrafamilial relationships, low selfesteem, stress to care for the child, unwanted or unplanned pregnancy and recent stressful life events in a woman's life [5,7,[21][22][23][24][25][26].…”

Gene Expression of FADS2 mRNA Linked to Intelligence in Exclusively Breast Milk Fed Preterms

“…Depression symptoms were significantly lowered in mothers who were encouraged to do more skin to skin care (Kymre and Bondas 2013). Hence the mother benefits from the enhanced genetic expression probably by interlink between FADS2 expression, PUFA and postpartum depression (Saleh et al, 2013).…”