It has been a while since I wrote on my blog. Thank you to my loyal readers. Here is another article I found which presents research on the impact of depression on premature birth.  Let me know what you think. I'll write more later!!
Cathy

   

                
        By: Allie Montgomery    

    Published: Friday, 24 October 2008

            

Mothers-to-be
who suffer from depression have been shown to have twice the risk of
delivering a premature infant than pregnant women that have no symptoms
of depression. This risk for premature infants increases as the
symptoms of depression become more severe.

In a new study, which
is among the first to study depression and premature births in a
representative and diverse population in the U.S., looked at
approximately 791 pregnant Kaiser Permanente members that were in San
Francisco City and county from October of 1996 through October of 1998.
According to the researchers, the findings provide preliminary evidence
that reproductive and social risk factors, stressful events, and
obesity may exacerbate the depression-premature delivery link. Because
the majority of the mothers in this study did not take
anti-depressants, the study provides a clear look at the link between
the premature delivery and depression.

The researchers
interviewed the mothers around their tenth week of pregnancy and found
that 41 percent reported significant or severe depression symptoms. The
women that had symptoms that were less severe had a 60 percent higher
risk of premature birth when compared with the women without
significant symptoms of depression. However, the women that had severe
symptoms of depression had more than twice the risk as the other for
premature birth.

The lead author of the study, Dr. De-Kun Li,
who is a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at Kaiser
Permanente’s Division of Research located in Oakland, said, “Preterm
delivery is the leading cause of infant mortality, and yet we don’t
know what causes it. What we do know is that a healthy pregnancy
requires a healthy placenta, and that placental function is influenced
by hormones, which are in turn influenced by the brain.”

The
study has also added emerging evidence that depression during the early
stages of pregnancy can interfere with the neuroendocrine pathways and
in turn, function of the placenta. The placenta and neuroendocrine
functions play a key role in maintaining a healthy pregnancy and
determining when labor will occur.

Li also stated, “Postpartum
depression has been extensively studied and discussed by the public,
but depression during pregnancy is significantly under-recognized and
under-diagnosed. Clinicians should pay close attention to depression
during pregnancy to catch it early…. If prenatal depression is indeed
as prevalent as reported in this and other studies and doubles the risk
of preterm delivery, then brining depression to the forefront of
prenatal care could lead to a significant reduction of preterm
deliveries.”

Premature birth is the leading medical expenditure
for infants. It is estimated to cost the United States $26 billion
dollars annually. Presently, other than previous history of premature
births, and some complications during pregnancy, very little is known
of the origins and risk factors contributing to premature delivery.

The
key strengths of this study are that it ascertained that symptoms of
depression early in the pregnancy, long before the premature birth
occurred, therefore avoiding recall bias. In addition, the study was
not clouded by the women taking medication for depression because only
1.5 percent of the study population had been prescribed antidepressants
and could be excluded from the study analyses.