Postpartum Women Essay

One in five women with history of pre eclampsia or eclampsia had features suggestive of PPD. The magnitude of PPD increases with the severity of the disease condition. Women who were young, single with lower level of education or having perinatal death had higher risk of postpartum depression. Also those women who lacked family support and had experienced stressful event during pregnancy. To prevent morbidity due to PPD, pregnant women with pre eclampsia and eclampsia should be screened for this condition along with making it an integral part of postnatal care.

STUDY LIMITATIONS
Since this was a cross sectional study, the exposure and outcome were simultaneously assessed. This may have impact on establishing a true relationship but this was overcome by asking if the woman had any pre pregnancy depressive symptoms.
Recall bias could have also had implication in this study, however, ample time was given to participants for them to recall the events to mitigate with this limitation.
The results cannot be generalised since this was a hospital based study. However, they can be applied in areas with similar settings. …show more content…
So the results can be useful for planning on management of postpartum women.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Obstetricians should be aware of the depressive symptoms among postnatal women so as to enable early diagnosis and treatment to prevent adverse outcome for infant and family.
Postpartum depression screening should be an integral part of postnatal care especially among women who had pre eclampsia or eclampsia or any identified risk factors.
Involvement of family members and/or partner in the care of pregnant or postpartum woman and the importance of social support in prevention of postpartum depression should be