Risk of suicide and postpartum depression in women who feel they were treated inadequately during childbirth.

BACKGROUND

Postpartum depression and suicide are two of the most frequent mental health disorders in the perinatal period and have an increasing trend.. An increasing number of women report receiving inadequate treatment during childbirth care. There are no studies that relate inadequate treatment to any of these mental health disorders; those that exist are very limited and have not used validated instruments. We proposed to determine if there is an association between inadequate treatment and/or abuse during childbirth care with the risk of postpartum depression (PPD) and the risk of suicidality in women during the perinatal stage.

METHODS

An observational study was carried out with postpartum women in Spain. Information was collected on sociodemographic and obstetric variables, among others. Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale was used to determine the risk of postpartum depression and item 10 for the risk of suicide, and the Childbirth Abuse and Respect Evaluation-Maternal Questionnaire (CARE-MQ) was used to determine the women's perception of having been treated inadequately during childbirth. Adjusted ORs and their 95 % CI were calculated.

RESULTS

1579 women participated. Women with CARE-MQ scores above the 90th percentile had a higher probability of risk of suicidal ideation (aOR of 2.89; 95 %CI: 1.60-5.04) and postpartum depression (aOR of 3.17; 95 %CI: 1.94-5.18) compared to those who had scores lower than the 50th percentile. On the contrary, factors associated with a lower probability of suicidal ideation and PPD were: higher economic income and attendance at prenatal education.

CONCLUSION

Women who perceived that they experienced a situation of inadequate treatment during childbirth were more likely to be at risk of postpartum depression and risk of suicide.