Christina Sira Husak

TENDENCY FOR DEPRESSION IN PREGNANT WOMEN COMPARED TO POSTPARTUM

Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics No2

Scientific Supervisor: Professor Heryak Svitlana Mukolaivna

I. Horbachevsky Ternopil State Medical University

Ternopil, Ukraine

Importance:Pregnancy and the period after delivery can be a very vulnerable time for women. Mothers often experience very strong emotional changes during this time. Pregnancy does not safeguard women against depression.

Aim:To examine the psychological status of pregnant and postpartum women in relation to fatigue and rumination. Two groups of pregnant women and postpartum were compared. The first group consisted of 24 pregnant women between the ages of 20 to 40 and the second group, 24 postpartum women between the ages of 20 to 40. The comparison was to see the difference of tendencies towards a depressive state.

Methods:Both groups of women were given two questionnaires, about fatigue and rumination. The average points for the Fatigue scale was 24 and the average points for the Rumination equaled 55. The higher the points were on each questionnaire, meant a greater tendency for depression.

Results:The first group, pregnant between the ages of 20 to 29 did not show a propensity towards a depressive state, regarding their fatigue and rumination questionnaires, that were less than 24 and 55. The women in this group between the ages of 30 to 40 had a result of 25% likelihood of predisposition towards depression. Three women had an above average rating in both the fatigue (25, 26, 26) and rumination (55, 58, 68) scale. Four women all-together had a higher rating for fatigue that was (25-28). 
The second group, postpartum, ages of 20 to 29 also did not show propensity for depression. At the same time, women ages of 30 to 40 years old had a 17% rating of predisposition towards depression in postpartum. Five women had an above average rating in the fatigue scale (25, 25, 28, 39, 40), just two of them had both fatigue (39, 40) and rumination (58, 58) above average.

Conclusion:Women, 20 to 29 years old do not have as high of a risk for depression in pregnant and postpartum periods, as do women of older age from 30 to 40 years old. Older age women have a higher predisposition for depression due to fatigue and rumination scales, 25% of cases in pregnant women and 17% of cases in postpartum.