Spontaneous pregnancy versus assisted reproductive technologies: implications on maternal mental health

ABSTRACT

Postpartum depression (PPD) is a major depressive disorder that affects women during the perinatal period. Our study aimed to evaluate the onset of psychological effects in spontaneous pregnancies in contrast with pregnancies resulting from in vitro fertilization (IVF). We carried out a prospective cohort study using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale to evaluate postpartum depression. Patients were divided into 3 different groups based on their conception method: group A included spontaneous pregnancies, group B included pregnancies after homologous IVF, and group C pregnancies after heterologous IVF. The study included 245 patients. In the first year postpartum the incidence of psychological disorders was different exclusively at discharge from hospital (24.8% A vs. 38.7 B vs. 19% C) [P < .05] and one year after childbirth (13.3% A vs. 3.4% B vs. 4.8% C) [P < .05]. The multifactorial analysis showed a significant positive association between psychological distress and advanced maternal age, low parental education, nulliparity, preterm delivery and low fetal weight at birth, multiple pregnancies and multiple births, low pain threshold, and high rate of requesting analgesia intrapartum [P < .05]. Our results suggest a high correlation between PPD and pregnancies resulting from homologous IVF at the time of discharge, whereas there is a higher chance that spontaneous pregnancies develop postpartum depression one year after delivery.

KEYWORDS:

• Assisted reproductive technology
• depression
• Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Test
• mental health
• postpartum depression

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the team of Translinguo Global especially Dr. Herman David Lopez Jimenez, for their professional assistance in manuscript preparation.

Declarations of interest statement

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. The authors have no conflict of interest to declare and didn’t receive any funding for this study. Informed consent was signed by all the participants before being included in the study. Patient were informed on the possibility of publishing data anonymously, also the were informed that the analysis of results was in according to privacy laws and human rights