Prevalence and course of maternal postnatal depression following preterm birth

Introduction: Prematurity is a very traumatic experience for both infant and his/her parents. Important consequences regard the infant’s survival and the risks for long-term developmental, cognitive, emotional and behavioral problems; at the same time, the premature birth is associated to parents’ worries, fears, concerns and negative affective states relative to the survival of the baby. Perinatal depression has been detected in about 50% of preterm babies’ mothers, a percentage which is higher than the one found in the general population (Brandon et al., 2011). At 6 months of corrected age, these levels tend to decrease to 20% and remain stable up to 2 years (Miles et al., 2007; Poehlmann et al., 2012), representing a relevant risk for the development of the preterm child, up to 3 years (Singer et al., 1999). Objectives and methods: The project aims at evaluating prevalence and course of postnatal depressive symptoms and comorbid anxious symptomatology in preterm babies’ mothers at relevant moments of infant development: 3, 9 and 12 months of infant’s corrected age. Analyses will be carried on comparing three groups of mothers differentiated by: 1) Preterm delivery of a baby weighing less than 1500 grams (Very Low Birth Weight); 2) Preterm delivery of a baby weighing less than 1000 grams (Extremely Low Birth Weight); 3) Term delivery of a healthy baby. At every step of the project, mothers will complete the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (Cox et al., 1987), Parenting-Stress Index (Abidin, 1995), Penn State Worry Questionnaire (Meyer et al. 1990), Social interaction and Anxiety Scale (Mattick, Clarke, 1998). Besides, the level of child development will be assessed using the Griffiths Mental Development Scales (Griffiths, 1996).