Abstract

Murtadha Abdulhasan Abdulbaqi, *Aida A. Manthar

ABSTRACT

Background: The mother experience of having premature baby has been noticed as a psychological stress and depression The most widely used tool for screening PPD is the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) which was used in this study to assess postpartum depression in mothers of preterm babies Methods: A crosssectional study was carried out to assess postpartum depression in 60 mothers of previously hospitalized preterm babies in neonatal care unit while they attended neonatal out-patient clinic of Basra maternity and children hospital over a period of 6 months from July to December 2017. A special questionnaire had been designed to collect maternal, neonatal and labor data. Postpartum depression was assessed using the Arabic version of Edinburgh postpartum depression scale. Results: The percentage of postpartum depression of mothers of preterm babies was 43.3%. The study showed that mothers of younger age, prim parity and low educational level, low family income, lacking of breast feeding and having a male preterm baby were significantly associated with postpartum depression, (p-value < 0.05). It was found that no significant associations were found between postpartum depression and bad obstetric and medical history, fathers age ,educational level and job, place of residency, antenatal care visits, consanguinity, type and place of delivery, complication of labor, gestational age and birth weight of infant, singleton or multiple pregnancy, immediate condition, duration of hospitalization and diagnosis, (p-value > 0.05). Logistic regression analysis revealed that significant correlation was present between postpartum depression and maternal job, parity, sex of the baby and type of feeding, (p-value < 0.05). While no statistical significance of other variables was found as maternal age and educational level, (p-value > 0.05). Conclusion: So postpartum depression was shown to be higher among mothers of Preterm babies and so hospital staff should pay special attention to both The infant’s development and the parental affective state, in order to prevent the onset of depression or anxiety and to give a prompt Intervention.