Neonatal intensive care unit admission and maternal postpartum depression

ABSTRACT

Objective: This study aimed to examine the impact of newborns’ Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) admittance on maternal postpartum depression.

Background: Prior research on the parental psychological impacts of a NICU admittance typically includes a hospital sample of parents following birth, so the causality of NICU admittance and maternal depressive symptomatology is unclear.

Methods: 127 women across 38 counties in a South Central US state participated in online surveys in their third trimester and approximately six weeks post-birth in 2016. Pre- and post-birth assessments of depression were measured with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). NICU admittance was asked in the post-birth survey. t-Tests and multivariable regression analyses were used to determine predictors of NICU admittance and postnatal depressive symptomatology.

Results: Findings indicate that prenatal depression does not differ significantly between mothers by NICU admission status, but NICU admission is a significant predictor of postpartum depressive symptomatology.

Conclusions: Having a newborn admitted to the NICU is a risk factor for maternal postpartum depression. These findings have implications for practice; screening mothers in the NICU for depression as a target for intervention has the potential to improve maternal well-being, which in turn should enhance subsequent infant developmental outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• NICU
• Neonatal intensive care
• postnatal depression
• mother(s)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by the Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station (OAES) and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (P20GM109097; Jennifer Hays-Grudo, PI); Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station [OKL02500].