Women who suffer from perinatal depression―depression during pregnancy and up to one year after delivery―have a higher risk of death by both natural and unnatural causes, irrespective of preexisting psychiatric disorders, two new studies report. Perinatal depression affects up to 20 per cent of all pregnant women.
The first study published in the BMJ compared 86,551 Swedish women diagnosed with perinatal depression with 8,65,510 unaffected women of the same age who had given birth the same year. Women with perinatal depression were generally twice as likely to die as women without the diagnosis. They were six times more likely to commit suicide and three times more likely to die from an accident.
The risk was highest in the month after diagnosis but remained elevated over an 18-year study period. It was also greater for women diagnosed with postpartum depression (depression after childbirth). The risk was the same among women who did and did not have psychiatric problems prior to pregnancy.
“Our recommendation is, therefore, not to discontinue effective psychiatric treatment during pregnancy,” the study commented. Researchers also compared data for 24,473 women who had perinatal depression with 2,46,113 unaffected biological sisters who delivered during the study period and found a similar association, suggesting that shared family factors are not a contributing factor.
Another study published in JAMA Network Open that included 9,52,061 women also found that those with perinatal depression had a three times higher risk of suicidal behaviour compared with mothers without perinatal depression. The risk of suicide was seven-fold during the year after diagnosis.
