Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-45l2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T18:18:14.039Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The influence of childbirth on psychiatric morbidity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

R. E. Kendell ,
S. Wainwright ,
A. Hailey  and
B. Shannon
R. E. Kendell
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and MRC Social Psychiatry Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London
S. Wainwright
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and MRC Social Psychiatry Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London
A. Hailey
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and MRC Social Psychiatry Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London
B. Shannon
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and MRC Social Psychiatry Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

The Camberwell Psychiatric Register was searched for contacts by the 2257 women resident in the register catchment area who were known to have had a child in 1970. Of these, 99 women (and 39 of their husbands) were found to have had a ‘new episode’ of psychiatric illness in the two years before or the two years after the birth of their child. The distribution of these ‘new episodes’ relative to the time of childbirth was then studied. In the women, both functional psychoses and depressive illnesses showed a sharp rise in the new episode rate in the three months immediately after delivery. There was also a suggestion of a secondary rise, less dramatic but more sustained, from the 10th to the 24th month after delivery. There was no comparable rise in the husbands. Women whose children were illegitimate had high new episode rates throughout the four-year study period, but not particularly so in the puerperium itself.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , May 1976 , pp. 297 - 302
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, E. W. (1933). A study of the sexual life in psychoses associated with childbirth. Journal of Mental Science 79, 137–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
American Psychiatric Association (1968). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 2nd ed. (DMS – II). A.P.A.: Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Foundeur, M., Fixsen, C., Triebel, W. A. & White, M. A. (1957). Postpartum mental illness: a controlled study. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 77, 503–512.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
General Register Office (1968). A Glossary of Mental Disorders. (Studies on Medical and Population Subjects, no. 22.) H.M.S.O.: London.Google Scholar
Grundy, P. F. & Roberts, C. J. (1975). Observations on the epidemiology of postpartum mental illness. Psychological Medicine 5, 286–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paffenbarger, R. S. (1964). Epidemiological aspects of para-partum mental illness. British Journal of Preventative and Social Medicine 18, 189–195.Google ScholarPubMed
Pitt, B. (1968). Atypical depression following childbirth. British Journal of Psychiatry 114, 1325–1335.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pugh, T. F., Jerath, B. K., Schmidt, W. M. & Reed, R. B. (1963). Rates of mental disease related to childbearing. New England Journal of Medicine 268, 1224–1228.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ryle, A. (1961). The psychological disturbances associated with 345 pregnancies in 137 women. Journal of Mental Science 107, 279–286.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, A. (1974). Some new techniques for epidemic monitoring. Medicine 35, 2052–2054.Google Scholar
Strecker, E. A. & Ebaugh, F. G. (1926). Psychoses occurring during the puerperium. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 15, 239–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tod, E. D. M. (1964). Puerperal depression: a prospective epidemiological study. Lancet ii, 1264–1266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vislie, H. (1956). Puerperal mental disorders. Acta Psychiatrica et Neurologica Scandinavica, Suppl. 111.Google ScholarPubMed
Wing, L., Bramley, C., Hailey, A. & Wing, J. K. (1968). Camberwell Cumulative Psychiatric Case Register. I. Aims and methods. Social Psychiatry 3, 116–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar