AUTHOR=Julien-Sweerts Sabrina , Rousselin Sandie , Raffeneau Florence , Xavier-David Charlotte , Changeur Violette , Apter Gisèle , Romo Lucia , Gicquel Ludovic 

TITLE=Toward early screening for early management of postnatal depression? Relationships between clinical signs present in the infant and underlying maternal postnatal depression

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.986796

DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2022.986796

ISSN=1664-0640

ABSTRACT=Objective: The objective was to screen the Maternal Postnatal Depression (MPD) by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) in the moment of the first peak of MPD (between the 6th and the 10th week) and to highlight relations between EPDS mother scores and early clinical signs of the infant. We wanted to evaluate the relevance of a diagnostic tool combining the EPDS with questions focused on the clinical signs of the infant. 

Participants: 767 mothers aged 18- 46 (M = 30.5, SD = 4.9) participated to the study. They represented 49.2 % of all women who delivered during the research inclusion period. 

Main outcome measures: Sociodemographic data were collected. MPD was measured by EPDS (score  12). The presence of clinical signs in the infant was investigated by closed questions (yes or no): “my infant has or has had difficulty sleeping, feeding difficulties, crying difficult to calm, other difficulties”. 

Results: The prevalence of MPD in our sample is 22.16 %. The relation between MPD and early clinical signs to the infant, performed by a chi-square test of independence, is very significant: sleep difficulties, feeding problems, tears difficult to calm (p < 0.001) and other problems (p = 0.004). Sleep difficulties (OR=2.05, CI [1.41-2.99]) and feeding difficulties (OR= 1.59, CI [1.10-2.30])) seem to predict MPD.  

Conclusions: Early clinical signs to the infant can alert the medical team to the psychological suffering of the mother and propose the EPDS to improve screening and therefore early management of MPD.