Sep 6, 2010 06:43 GMT  ·  By
Abuse during pregnancy linked to postnatal depression, regardless of the type of abuse used
   Abuse during pregnancy linked to postnatal depression, regardless of the type of abuse used

In a recent investigation, researchers at the University of Bristol, in the United Kingdom, discovered that women who are subjected to psychological and physical violence during pregnancy tend to be more depressed after birth than their peers who are not mistreated.

According to the work, which appears in the September 6 issue of the esteemed journal The Lancet, it would appear that women respond equally as bad to all forms of abuse and neglect they may be subjected to while pregnant.

The correlation with postnatal depression was found to be higher if the person performing the abuses was a close, intimate partner to the person being abused.

The UK researchers, who worked closely with investigators from Brazil, determined that the correlations also held even after they accounted for physical or sexual violence.

The new data is very worrying because the vast majority of abuse cases are treated as if only physical violence was involved.

Prevention programs are also aimed only at preventing and reducing the incidence of physical violence, and not on the mental or psychological variety.

The study was conducted on a large number of pregnant women, all of which were based in Recife, northeastern Brazil. The work was led by Dr Ana Bernarda Ludermir, of the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, in Brazil.

The team here collaborated with colleagues from the UB School of Social and Community Medicine in conducting the new research.

All the women were followed between July 2005 and December 2006. They were aged between 18 and 49, the research team says. More than 1,45 test subjects were eventually included in the statistics.

“We recorded a clear positive association between the frequency of psychological violence during pregnancy and the occurrence of postnatal depression, even after adjustments,” says Dr Ludermir.

“As in previous studies, psychological violence was much more common than was physical or sexual violence,” she adds

“About 10 per cent of the burden of postnatal depression could be attributed to partner violence during pregnancy, with most attributable to psychological violence, which was the most common form of violence in our study,” the expert goes on to say.

“Partner violence is increasingly becoming recognized as an important public health problem worldwide.  However, psychological violence is often not identified because of the emphasis placed on the detection of physical and sexual violence, she concludes.