Depressive symptoms in mothers after perinatal and early infant loss in rural Bangladesh: a population-based study

PURPOSE: We examined stillbirth and neonatal death as predictors of depressive symptoms in women experiencing these events during the first 6 months postpartum. METHODS: We performed secondary analyses using data from 41,348 married women aged 13-44 years, originally collected for the JiVitA-1 study (2001-2007) in northwest Bangladesh. Adjusted relative risk ratios were estimated to determine the associations between stillbirth and early infant death and women's risk of reported depressive symptoms (trichotomized 0, 1-2, 3-5) up to 6 months after the death. Adjusted risk ratios, comparing 0-2 versus 3-5 depressive symptoms, were used in stratified analyses. RESULTS: Women having fetal/infant deaths had elevated risk of experiencing 1-2 postpartum depressive symptoms (adj RRRs between 1.2 and 1.7) and of experiencing 3-5 postpartum depressive symptoms (adj RRRs between 1.9 and 3.3), relative to women without a fetal/infant death. Notably, those whose infants died in the early postneonatal period had over a three-fold risk of 3-5 depressive symptoms (adj relative risk ratio [RRR] = 3.3; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.6-4.3) compared to a two-fold risk for women experiencing a stillbirth (adj RRR = 1.9; 95% CI, 1.7-2.1). After early postneonatal deaths, women with higher levels of education were more likely to suffer 3-5 depressive symptoms (adj relative risk [RR] = 10.6; 95% CI, 5.2-21.7, >/=10 years of education) compared to women with lower levels of education (adj RR = 2.0; 95% CI, 1.6-2.4, no education; adj RR = 2.2; 95% CI, 1.6-2.9, 1-9 years of education). CONCLUSIONS: Women's mental health needs should be prioritized in low-resource settings, where these outcomes are relatively common and few mental health services are available.