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 Researchers focused on parents of the most vulnerable preemies –
those born at 30 weeks gestation or less and admitted to the
neonatal intensive care unit.
Pregnancy normally lasts about 40 weeks, and babies born after 37
weeks are considered full term. Most premature babies arrive between
34 and 37 weeks gestation, when they are considered late preterm.
In the new study, mothers of the extreme preemies had 10 times
higher odds of depression shortly after giving birth than their
peers with full-term babies. Fathers of extreme preterm babies had
11 times the depression risk, researchers report in JAMA Pediatrics.
“Our findings show that it is common for parents to be distressed in
the weeks following very preterm birth, but it is also important to
note that distress does tend to improve over time for most parents,”
said lead study author Dr. Carmen Pace of The Royal Children’s
Hospital in Melbourne, Australia.
In the weeks immediately after birth, premature infants often have
difficulty breathing and digesting food. These early arrivals can
also encounter longer-term challenges such as impaired vision,
hearing, and cognitive skills as well as social and behavioral
problems.
The study included 113 mothers and 101 fathers of preemies, as well
as 117 mothers and 151 fathers of healthy, full-term infants. All of
the babies were born at Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne from
2011 to 2013.
In assessments done soon after birth, 40 percent of mothers with
preemies were depressed, compared with just 6 percent of women who
had full-term babies.
At that point, 36 percent of fathers with preemies and 5 percent of
the other fathers were also depressed, the study found.
By six months, depression rates remained fairly similar for the
parents of full-term babies, but declined for the parents of
preemies.
In the group with early arrivals, 14 percent of mothers and 19
percent of fathers were depressed six months after the birth.
With anxiety, the pattern was similar.
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During the period right after birth, 48 percent of mothers with
preemies experienced anxiety, compared with 13 percent of other
mothers. For fathers of preemies, 47 percent suffered from anxiety,
compared with 10 percent of the other men.
Limitations of the study include the possibility that the high level
of support services at the hospital may have contributed to greater
declines in depression and anxiety over time than parents might
experience in other situations, the researchers note.
Much more research has focused on mothers and post-natal depression,
however, and the current study offers some novel evidence of the
need to better understand the emotional impact of birth on fathers,
said Dr. Karen Benzies, a pediatrics researcher at the University of
Calgary in Canada who wasn’t involved in the study.
“Including fathers is a strength of this study as little is known
about fathers,” Benzies said by email.
With mothers of preemies, earlier studies have shown they can remain
hyper-vigilant and protective of their infant for a long period of
time, Benzies said.
“Good therapies are available, and treated depression does not seem
to have a long lasting effect on child development,” Benzies noted.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/29UzvVJ JAMA Pediatrics, online July 18, 2016.
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