Yoga for Chronic Depressive Symptoms in Pregnancy: A Commentary and Call to Action

Abstract

Women with depressive symptoms during pregnancy are in great need of safe, inexpensive, non-pharmacologic, accessible, and effective adjunctive therapies to enhance well-being, reduce the burden of symptoms both during their pregnancy and into the postpartum period, and prevent chronic sequelae. Because maternal depressive symptoms are associated with a variety of poor maternal-child outcomes (e.g., poor maternal health behaviors, suicide, poor maternal-fetal/child attachment, intrauterine growth restriction, adult-onset chronic illnesses in offspring, among others), a focus on adequate symptom management during pregnancy is an urgent clinical and research priority. Prenatal yoga is a promising modality which involves gentle physical activity, breathing practices, and relaxation practices that may empower women to self-manage symptoms, enhance well-being, and reduce symptom burden during pregnancy and into the postpartum period. Continued high-quality research is warranted which uses established theoretical frameworks and which builds on my team’s and others’ preliminary research studies which have demonstrated that pregnant women prefer to play an active role in symptom management and that they view prenatal yoga as an accessible, preferred form of mindful physical activity. Yoga for depression in pregnancy 3.