Predicting and Identifying Postpartum Blues may be the key to implementing Preventive Approaches in Perinatal Mental Health: Findings from a Prospective, follow up Study in India.

Objective: The present study aimed to estimate the prevalence of post-partum blues and investigate the correlates of the disorder. An additional objective was to study the correlation of blues with subsequent development of psychiatric disorders. Methods: A prospective study design was adopted and a total of 73 women were included. Those who developed maternity blues were compared with those who hadn’t on multiple socio-demographic, obstetric, psychiatric and psychosocial variables. Results: The prevalence of post-partum blues was estimated to be 28.8 %. Of the women with blues 14.2% went on to develop post-partum depression whereas none of the women who had not experienced blues developed depression. It was found that there was a significant correlation between post-partum blues and the following variables in decreasing order of significance: poor marital quality, pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, past history of psychiatric illness, higher scores on stressful life events in the past one year, fear of labour and upcoming events, perinatal complications to the mother, unplanned pregnancy and family history of psychiatric illness. Conclusions: The study highlights the importance of post-partum blues as these women are at higher risk of developing post-partum depression. Psycho-social variables that can contribute to the development of blues such as stressful events experienced during pregnancy and poor marital quality should be assessed and interventions planned accordingly to reduce the impact of these on women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]