OBJECTIVE Outcome investigations of prenatal maternal depression and psychotropic exposure rely extensively on maternal retrospective recall. This study compared postnatal recall to prospective documentation of illness and medication exposures. DESIGN Prospective cohort and retrospective case-control studies. SETTING Emory Women's Mental Health Program (prospective study) and Emory Universi...

OBJECTIVE To date, most investigations of mental health in pregnant women have focused on depression or substance use. This study aimed to (a) delineate the relationships between symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and prenatal health behaviors and (b) explore whether the symptom clusters of ADHD differentially predict prenatal health behaviors (e.g., physical strain, he...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to examine the association of prenatal depression screening and obstetrics clinician notification procedures with depression treatment use through 6 weeks postpartum. METHODS An initial sample of 1298 women was screened for depression as part of routine clinical care at their first prenatal care appointment using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale...

BACKGROUND Female fetuses are more vulnerable to high levels of maternal glucocorticoids. We examined whether exposure to prenatal maternal depression, a condition associated with high glucocorticoids, carries greater risk for depression at 12 and 18 years in girls. METHODS Our sample comprised 7959 mothers and children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children following imputa...

This narrative review based on a literature search in PubMed and PsycInfo on the two terms prenatal and antenatal depression includes empirical studies, reviews and meta-analyses that have been published during the last 5 years on risk factors, developmental effects and interventions for prenatal depression. Risk factor studies that met criteria feature demographic measures (lower socioeconomic...

OBJECTIVE This study examined the association between prenatal alcohol exposure and child depressive symptoms, and the mediating effects of maternal and child characteristics. METHODS Participants were 42 children aged 4-5 years and their biological mothers. Prenatal alcohol consumption was assessed by self-report of maximum drinks per drinking occasion. The Pictorial Depression Scale (PDS) m...

BACKGROUND Identifying predictors of the course of depressive symptoms from pregnancy through postpartum is important to inform clinical interventions. METHODS This longitudinal study investigated predictors of recovery from prenatal elevated depressive symptoms in the postpartum period. Forty-one pregnant women completed demographic, interpersonal, and psychosocial self-report assessment mea...

Health care providers face many challenges when providing prenatal care. This article reports on a program called Prenatal Care: the Beginning of a Lifetime (PCBL), to implement standardized prenatal care in central North Carolina. The purpose of this pilot study was to determine if there were differences in patient outcomes between a control group and 3 groups (A, B, and C) of increasing level...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects of maternal and paternal depression on the risk for preterm birth. DESIGN National cohort study. SETTING Medical Birth Register of Sweden, 2007-2012. POPULATION A total of 366 499 singleton births with linked information for parents' filled drug prescriptions and hospital care. METHODS Prenatal depression was defined as having filled a prescription f...