Depressed mothers deliver underweight babies--study

Details of the study
720 women, all in the third trimester of pregnancy, from rural Bangladesh were recruited from the study.

Using the standardized international diagnostic test, Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale for depression and State Trait Anxiety Inventory for anxiety, the researchers assessed the severity of depressive symptoms in each participant.

The participants were followed until 6 to 8 months post delivery.

18 percent of the women showed depressive symptoms, while 26 percent showed symptoms of general anxiety, researchers found.

Though women with depressive symptoms were just as likely to give birth prematurely as women without symptoms, but full-term babies born to women with depressive symptoms were twofold likely to be born with a low birth weight, weighing less than 2,500 g (5.5 lbs) at birth, researchers noted.

Infants of mothers with depressive symptoms also had, on average, a smaller head circumference.

"18 percent of the women we studied in two rural areas of Bangladesh were diagnosed as having depression and one-quarter as having anxiety during pregnancy, and these women were much more likely to give birth to very small babies. This is a worrying problem, since low birth weight is strongly associated with infant death, which may in turn perpetuate the cycle of mental health problems and underdevelopment," study’s lead author Hashima-E- Nasreen, said.

The link
Though the researchers are not clear about how depression and anxiety affect fetal development, they believe depressed women are less likely to seek adequate prenatal and medical care while pregnant.

The science behind a troubled mental health may also somehow “throw off” the normal fetal development process, researchers say.

Impact of mental health on pregnancy
The research, studying a non-Western population, establishes that mental health issues are equal contributors to infant mortality and poor child health, like poverty, malnutrition and low socio-economic status.

Mothers across all incomes and all nutritional strata were equally likely to exhibit the effects of depression and anxiety on baby weight as women afflicted by poverty and maternal malnutrition.

The findings of the study are published in the open access journal 'BMC Public Health.'