Predicting and Identifying Postpartum Blues may be the key to implementing Preventive Approaches in Perinatal Mental Health: Findings from a Prospective, follow up Study in India

Abstract

Objective: The present study aimed to estimate the prevalence of post-partum blues and investigate the correlates ofthe disorder. An additional objective was to study the correlation of blues with subsequent development of psychiatricdisorders.Methods: A prospective study design was adopted and a total of 73 women were included. Those who developedmaternity blues were compared with those who hadn’t on multiple socio-demographic, obstetric, psychiatric and psychosocialvariables.Results: The prevalence of post-partum blues was estimated to be 28.8 %. Of the women with blues 14.2% went on todevelop post-partum depression whereas none of the women who had not experienced blues developed depression. Itwas found that there was a significant correlation between post-partum blues and the following variables in decreasingorder of significance: poor marital quality, pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, past history of psychiatric illness, higherscores on stressful life events in the past one year, fear of labour and upcoming events, perinatal complications to themother, unplanned pregnancy and family history of psychiatric illness.Conclusions: The study highlights the importance of post-partum blues as these women are at higher risk of developingpost-partum depression. Psycho-social variables that can contribute to the development of blues such as stressful eventsexperienced during pregnancy and poor marital quality should be assessed and interventions planned accordingly toreduce the impact of these on women.