Women’s experiences with postpartum anxiety disorders: a narrative literature review

Abstract

PurposePostpartum anxiety disorders are common and may have significant consequences for mothers and their children. This review examines the literature on women’s experiences with postpartum generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), postpartum panic disorder (PD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).MethodsMEDLINE (Ovid), CINAHL, PsycINFO, and reference lists were searched. Qualitative and quantitative studies assessing women’s experiences with GAD, postpartum PD, OCD, and PTSD were included. Narrative approach to literature synthesis was used.ResultsFourteen studies (among 44 articles) met the criteria for review to identify descriptions of women’s cognitive, affective, and somatic experiences related to postpartum anxiety disorders. Loss, frustration, and guilt, accompanied by physical symptoms of tension, were some of the experiences identified across studies. Most women suffered from more than one anxiety disorder, in addition to postpartum depression. To date, research has focused on prevalence rates of postpartum anxiety disorders, and evidence about clinical and subclinical symptoms of postpartum anxiety disorders and outcomes on mother and child is lacking. Postpartum anxiety disorders may have negative effects on parenting and child development; however, the nature of the underlying mechanisms is unclear.ConclusionMore robust longitudinal studies are needed to examine the impact of postpartum GAD, PD, OCD, and PTSD symptoms on the mother and the mother–child relationship to develop targets for therapeutic preventative interventions.

Spanish validation and factor structure of the Birth Satisfaction Scale-Revised (BSS-R)

“…Similarly, in relation to the S-BSS-R SE sub-scale women experiencing an unassisted delivery scored significantly higher compared to those receiving an intervention, thus, and again consistent with other studies (Fleming et al, 2016;Hollins Martin and Martin, 2014;Jefford et al, 2018), indicating that assisted delivery is associated with less satisfaction and more stress. Given the relationship of stress as a fundamental component to distinct perinatal mental health presentations, ranging from postpartum posttraumatic stress disorder (Ali, 2018;Dikmen-Yildiz et al, 2017;Shlomi Polachek et al, 2016), tokophobia (Goutaudier et al, 2018;Striebich et al, 2018) and postnatal depression (Dennis et al, 2018;Pampaka et al, 2018), this finding yields valuable data regarding the potential implications of delivery type on psychological well-being and the development of psychiatric disturbance. Focusing upon the S-BSS-R QC sub-scale we noted that women who had an assisted delivery were significantly less satisfied in terms of quality of care received compared to those who had an unassisted delivery.…”

Cognitive behavioral therapy for postpartum panic disorder: a case series

“…In the field of women’s health, anxiety and depression symptoms are common in the postpartum period [1]. A recent literature review reported that generalized anxiety disorder, PD, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and post-traumatic stress disorder are frequently diagnosed in postpartum women [2]. Specifically, the prevalence of clinically significant anxiety and depression, which is the most common mental condition during the postpartum period, has been observed at a rate of 10–20% in developed countries and approximately 30% in developing countries [3].…”

“…However, the effects of CBT are understudied. CBT’s previous research on perinatal depression and on effectiveness of psychotherapy for non-perinatal adult PD by the rigid systematic review has important implications for perinatal PD [2, 16]. The recent review by meta-analysis including 20 RCTs, including 3623 women, show that CBT as psychotherapy significant improved depression symptoms [16].…”

“…Therefore, CBT may be able to reduce panic symptoms as well as depression for perinatal PD. In addition, since literary prior research was in the Western culture area [2], it is important to consider CBT for perinatal PD in Eastern Asia as Japan.…”

Probiotics and Maternal Mental Health: A Randomised Controlled Trial among Pregnant Women with Obesity

“…Thus, it is unsurprising that maternal mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, are commonly experienced by women during this time. The experience of poor maternal mental health has been associated with a myriad of adverse pregnancy and birth outcomes such as preterm birth 3,[5][6][7] and low infant birthweight 3,6 , in addition to longer-term negative impacts regarding child development [8][9][10][11] , offspring mental health 8,12,13 , early mother-child interaction [14][15][16][17] , and ongoing mental health issues for the mother 17,18 . Despite significant consequences, maternal mental health symptomology continues to be under-recognised and under-treated 2,19 .…”