The depression and anxiety suffered by women after losing pregnancy may persist for years, even after they have given birth to a health child, found a new study. The loss of pregnancy or miscarriage is the most distressing episode ever happened in life of a woman.
Several women become depressed and often develop grave emotional or mental disorders after the miscarriage. For study analysis the researchers from at the University of Rochester Medical Center, the Imperial School of Medicine and the University of Bristol, examined more than thirteen thousand pregnant women who were taking part in long standing study called the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.
The all study participants were asked about the number of earlier miscarriages and stillbirths which they had experienced. The study participants were also evaluated for symptoms of depression anxiety two times in their pregnancy at eighteen and thirty-two weeks and four times after giving birth. About ten thousand and two hundred women reported no miscarriage.
But nearly three thousand women reported to have one and more miscarriage and one hundred and eight women reported having one earlier stillbirth. The results of the analysis showed that participants who suffered loss of pregnancy experienced higher levels of anxiety and depression during pregnancy and continued for three years even after successful birth of a healthy child.
More exactly, about thirteen percent of the women who reported having one miscarriage or stillbirth still had symptoms of depression thirty-three months after the birth, whilst among the women with two previous pregnancy losses, about nineteen percent showed symptoms of depression after same duration of child birth.
According to study author Emma Robertson Blackmore, from University of Rochester Medical Centre in the US, their study clearly shows that birth of a healthy baby does not resolve the mental health problems that many women experience after a miscarriage or stillbirth, reported of the British Journal of Psychiatry.
This finding is significant as when evaluating if a woman is at risk of postnatal depression, earlier pregnancy loss is usually not considered likewise other risk factors like family history of depression, stressful life events, or a lack of social support, added Ms Blackmore.