(Press-News.org) Women who experience depression and anxiety after a miscarriage can continue to experience these symptoms even if they subsequently go on to have a healthy child.
The findings, based on the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) at the University of Bristol and published online today by the British Journal of Psychiatry, show no evidence that mental health problems associated with miscarriage or stillbirth end with the birth of a healthy baby. Instead, women may continue to experience symptoms for several years after the postnatal period.
The researchers studied 13,133 pregnant women involved in ALSPAC and asked them to report the number of previous miscarriages and stillbirths they had experienced. They were assessed for symptoms of depression and anxiety twice during their pregnancy (at 18 and 32 weeks), and four times after giving birth (at 8 weeks, 8 months, 21 months and 33 months).
The majority of women (10,310) reported no miscarriages. 2,823 women (21 per cent) reported having one or more previous miscarriages. 108 (0.5 per cent) reported having one previous stillbirth and just 3 women had 2 previous stillbirths.
The researchers found that women who had lost a baby in the past experienced significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression during pregnancy – and this continued nearly three years after they gave birth to a healthy baby.
Speaking about the findings, Professor Jean Golding, founder of ALSPAC and one of the report's authors, said:
'This study is important to the families of women who have lost a baby, since it is so often assumed that they get over the event quickly, yet as shown here, many do not. This has implications for the medical profession as well as the woman and her family.'
Lead researcher, Dr Emma Robertson Blackmore of the University of Rochester Medical Center in the USA, added:
'Our study clearly shows that the birth of a healthy baby does not resolve the mental health problems that many women experience after a miscarriage or stillbirth. This finding is important because, when assessing if a women is at risk of antenatal or postnatal depression, previous pregnancy loss is usually not taken into account in the same way as other risk factors such as a family history of depression, stressful life events or a lack of social support.
'We know that maternal depression can have adverse impacts on children and families. If we offer targeted support during pregnancy to women who have previously lost a baby, we may be able to improve health outcomes for both the women and their children.'
Pregnancy loss associated with miscarriage or stillbirth is common, affecting between 70,000 and 90,000 women in the UK each year. 14-20 per cent of pregnancies end in miscarriage (the loss of pregnancy before 24 weeks), and stillbirth (the loss of a pregnancy after 24 weeks) occurs in around 0.5 per cent of pregnancies. Between 50 and 80 per cent of women who experience pregnancy loss become pregnant again.
###
Notes to editors
1. Issued by ALSPAC, University of Bristol.
2. The paper: Robertson Blackmore E, Côté-Arsenault D, Tang W, Glover V, Evans J, Golding J and O'Connor TG. Previous prenatal loss as a predictor of perinatal depression and anxiety. British Journal of Psychiatry, ePub ahead of print 3 March 2011, doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.110.083105 is available on request.
3. For more information and interviews with Professor Jean Golding, contact Dara O'Hare, Communications Manager, ALSPAC on + 44 (0)117 331 0077 or + 44 (0)7952 687962 or email dara.ohare@bristol.ac.uk.
4. For interviews with Dr Emma Robertson Blackmore, call 00 1 585 273 4484 or email emma_robertsonblackmore@urmc.rochester.edu.
END
Pregnant women who are unaware that they have HIV miss the chance for drug treatment that can benefit not only their own health, but could also prevent them from transmitting the virus to their infants. When HIV is not diagnosed until women go into labor, their infants are usually treated soon after birth with the anti HIV drug zidovudine (ZDV), to prevent the infants from becoming infected with the virus.
Now, a National Institutes of Health study has found that adding one or two drugs to the standard ZDV treatment can reduce the chances by more than 50 percent that ...
Physicists at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a collaboration of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland-College Park, have for the first time caused a gas of atoms to exhibit an important quantum phenomenon known as spin-orbit coupling. Their technique opens new possibilities for studying and better understanding fundamental physics and has potential applications to quantum computing, next-generation "spintronics" devices and even "atomtronic" devices built from ultracold atoms.
In the researchers' demonstration of ...
Four new Brazilian species in the genus Ophiocordyceps have been published in the online journal PLoS ONE. The fungi, named by Dr. Harry Evans and Dr. David Hughes, belong to a group of "zombifying" fungi that infect ants and then manipulate their behavior, eventually killing the ants after securing a prime location for spore dispersal.
These results appear in a paper by Evans et al. entitled Hidden Diversity Behind the Zombie-Ant Fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis: Four New Species Described from Carpenter Ants in Minas Gerais, Brazil. This paper is the first to validly ...
Hampton Inn & Suites Scottsboro Hotel offers nearby lodging to golfers and guests attending the Spring-Fling National Jr. College Golf Tournament at Goose Pond Colony Golf. The tournament will showcase the best young golfers from across the country. The event will take place March 17 - 19, 2011 at Colony Course.
Goose Pond Colony is a municipally owned resort on Lake Guntersville offering two beautiful 18-hole golf courses. The Colony Course was rated 4 stars by Golf Digest in 2008-09. There are views of the lake from every hole on the course. The Par 72 course plays ...
Work led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists identified how cells flip a switch between cell survival and cell death that involves a protein called FLIP.
The findings solve a riddle that has puzzled scientists for more than a decade regarding the dual nature of caspase-8, an enzyme intimately linked to the cell's suicide pathway but also essential for cell survival during embryonic development and the immune response. Researchers identified FLIP and the silencing of another enzyme, named RIPK3, as playing pivotal roles. The study was published in the ...
The brightness of the nightly sky glow over major cities has been shown to depend strongly on cloud cover. In natural environments, clouds make the night sky darker by blocking the light of the stars but around urban centers, this effect is completely reversed, according to a new study by a group of physicists and ecologists at the Free University of Berlin (FU) and the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB).
"We found that overcast skies were almost three times brighter than clear at our rural location, and ten times as bright within the city ...
The Holiday Inn Express & Suites Atlanta Perimeter Hotel (North) by Perimeter Mall and Atlanta Perimeter Center, offers nearby accommodations to fans attending the 2011 SEC Men's Basketball Tournament at Georgia Dome in downtown Atlanta, GA. The tournament will be held from Thursday, March 10 -13, 2011. This year's winner will be awarded the SEC conference's automatic bid to the 2011 NCAA Tournament which will follow the 2011 SEC Basketball tournament.
The SEC Basketball Tournament is a premier event in college sports. All Southeastern Conference schools participate ...
In times of uncertainty employers should engage more openly with their staff and drop the jargon to improve communication and allow feedback, according to a paper in this month's International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management.
D. Keith Denton of the Department of Management, at Missouri State University, in Springfield, suggests that it is essential for companies that wish to survive economic strife to create an atmosphere of trust in these untrusting times. He says that, "Companies with high-trust levels give employees unvarnished information about company's ...
Jerusalem, March 1, 2011 – A pathway whereby bacteria communicate with each other has been discovered by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The discovery has important implications for efforts to cope with the spread of harmful bacteria in the body.
Bacteria are known to communicate in nature primarily via the secretion and receipt of extracellular signalling molecules, said Prof. Sigal Ben-Yehuda of the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada (IMRIC) at the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine, head of the research team on the phenomenon, whose ...
Researchers have long promoted biofuels produced from crop biomass as an environmentally sustainable source of renewable energy. A recent study questions whether the potential climate benefit of sugarcane ethanol is diminished when emissions from land use management are considered.
Scientists examined the sugarcane ethanol production systems to identify sources of greenhouse gas emissions. They found that land use change, fertilization, residue burning, and tillage had the largest impact on greenhouse gas emissions.
According to Dr. Klaus Butterbach-Bahl, head of the ...
