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Anxiety During Pregnancy and Postpartum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Margaret Altemus
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Extract

Perinatal depression is widely considered to be a major public health problem. Anxiety disorders are also common among women of childbearing years, but the course and consequences of anxiety during pregnancy have not yet been established.

Almost all studies of the prevalence and consequences of perinatal anxiety have used questionnaire measures of anxiety. Unlike the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, questionnaire measures of anxiety symptoms have not been validated for pregnant or postpartum patients, thus it is unclear to what degree these measures are detecting anxiety versus typical physical symptoms associated with pregnancy and infant care. For example, many items on the Beck Anxiety Inventory, including difficulty breathing, facial flushing, unsteadiness, light headedness, sweating, and indigestion, commonly occur during pregnancy. In a study of >8,000 women, more women scored above a cut-off score on the anxiety subscale of the Crown-Crisp Index during weeks 18 and 32 of pregnancy compared to 8 weeks and 8 months postpartum. Three studies have administered selected modules from the Structured Clinical Interview to postpartum women. All three studies found that >50% of women with postpartum anxiety disorders were not depressed and that anxiety disorders were at least as common postpartum as major depression. Antenatal anxiety was associated with an increased risk of postpartum depression, even after controlling for antenatal depression.

Type
Symposium Monograph Supplement
Information
CNS Spectrums , Volume 9 , Issue 9 , September 2004 , pp. 10 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2004

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