EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE: 3 p.m. (CT) Tuesday, February 4, 1997 Media Advisory: To contact Richard Neugebauer, Ph.D., M.P.H., call Claudia Bial at 212/960-2421.
Women Who Miscarry at Increased Risk for Depression Doctors encouraged to monitor miscarrying patients who are childless or have been depressed
Physicians should pay special attention to women who miscarry, especially when the women are childless or have had a history of major depression, according to an article in this week's issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Richard Neugebauer, Ph.D., M.P.H., from the New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, and colleagues studied the frequency of major depressive disorder among 229 women who miscarried and compared them to 230 women in the community who had not been pregnant.
The researchers found that women who miscarried were two-and-a-half times more likely to suffer from major depression than women who had not been pregnant in the preceding year. The risk of depression was five times higher among childless women who miscarried, but was only slightly higher among women with children who miscarried.
The authors write: "The present results should prompt physicians to monitor miscarrying patients in the first weeks after reproductive loss, particularly women who are childless or who have a history of major depressive disorder. For these high-risk women, consideration should be given to initiating referral to a mental health professional for further evaluation and instituting appropriate treatment."
Ten to twenty percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. In the United States, approximately 500,000 women miscarry annually. For many women, miscarriage constitutes an unanticipated, physically traumatic event representing the death of a future child and disruption of family planning. It may also engender doubts about procreative competence, according to information cited in the study.
Among the study cohort, 10.9 percent of miscarrying women experienced major depression while 4.3 percent of the other women were affected. The depression usually set in during the first month after loss.
The researchers found that the risk for an episode of major depressive disorder is especially elevated among women with a history of major depressive disorder. More than 50 percent of miscarrying women and approximately 25 percent of community women with a history of depressive disorder experienced a new episode during the six-month study period.
The authors state: "Our findings suggest that the presence of children reduces women's risk for depressive illness associated with the bereavement of miscarriage. Whether this benefit extends to other bereavements, such as widowhood, merits study."
They conclude: "Additional research is required to determine the duration of increased risk among childless women and to determine whether some other groups, eg, older women, experience a delayed increase in risk."
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For more information: contact the AMA's Amy Fox at 312/464-4843. email: [email protected] AMA web site: http://www.ama-assn.org
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