Prepregnancy obesity: risk factor for postpartum depression.(OBSTETRICS)

SAN DIEGO -- Prepregnancy obesity is an independent risk factor for postpartum depression, a large analysis demonstrates.

Common pregnancy stressors such as divorce or separation or being involved in a physical fight also were found to increase the risk.

"While I advocate that we should screen all women for depression, I think there are subsets of women whose risk is so high that we should either be identifying ways to prevent depression in this group or carry out early targeted surveillance and treatment," Dr. D. Yvette LaCoursiere said in an interview during a poster session at the annual meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.

"So if a woman comes to pregnancy with a BMI of greater than 35 kg/[m.sup.2] who has psychosocial stressors, she may have a risk of postpartum depression of 40%-60%. Perhaps that population should be targeted, both for research and for clinical purposes," she said.

Previous research has shown that women with a history of depression are at increased risk of developing postpartum depression, but the possible association between prepregnancy obesity and subsequent postpartum depression has not been sufficiently studied, said Dr. LaCoursiere of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California at San Diego.

She and her associate, Dr. Michael W. Varner of the division of maternal-fetal medicine at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, followed 1,053 women who were delivered of a term, singleton, liveborn infant at one of four hospitals in Utah between 2005 and 2007.

At intake, the researchers obtained demographic and anthropomorphic information and pregnancy stressors, in addition to a psychiatric, medical, obstetric, and family history. Participants were also asked to complete the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS).