C-sections have no effect on depression—study

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Having a cesarean section or assisted vaginal delivery does not change a woman’s risk of developing postnatal depression compared with a regular vaginal birth, new study results suggest.

As a result, the study “suggests that a worry about postnatal depression is not good grounds for offering caesarian section,” resecraher Deirdre Murphy, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Dundee in Scotland, told AMN Health.

Postnatal depression is a depressive illness that strikes some women in the months after having a baby.

Symptoms can range from feelings of worthlessness to thoughts of suicide.

With cesarian sections (or “C-sections"), a baby is delivered surgically through an incision in the mother’s abdomen. In assisted vaginal births, the baby is delivered using vacuum extraction or forceps.

The new study finds that the delivery method does no affect the risk of postnatal depression, meaning that there does not appear to be any reason that women who are at high risk for depression or who have suffered from depression should have one delivery method over another, according to Dr. Roshni R. Patel and investigators with the Avon longitudinal study of parents and children (ALSPAC).

Dr. Patel, an obstetrician at the University of Bristol in the UK, and his colleagues compared rates of postnatal depression among 10,934 women who delivered singleton infants at term. Of these women, about 80% had a regular vaginal delivery, about 11% had an assisted vaginal delivery, about 5% had an emergency C-section and about 4% had an elective C-section.

The women completed a questionnaire at eight weeks after delivery to measure whether they were suffering from postnatal depression. The rate of postnatal depression was not significantly different for those who had an elective C-section compared with planned vaginal delivery after adjustment for certain variables associated with the operation and housing, the researchers found.

The results of the research were reported in the Internet medical journal BMJ Online First, published on February 25.

SOURCE: BMJ Online First, February 25, 2005.

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