The odds triple for early child delivery among pregnant women with a history of depression who used psychiatric medication, a new study showed. Researchers at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and University of Washington found that a combination of medication use and depression—either before or during pregnancy—was strongly linked to delivery before 35 weeks' gestation. "Medication use may be an indicator of depressive symptom severity, which is a direct or indirect contributing factor to pre-term delivery," said Kristine Siefert, the study's co-author and U-M professor of social work. Most physicians initiated pre-term deliveries after the women suffered complications, such as preeclampsia, poor fetal growth, or acute hemorrhage. The study examined the associations among maternal depression, psychiatric medication use in pregnancy and pre-term delivery among women in five Michigan communities who received pre-natal care at one of 52 participating clinics. These women had to be at least 15 years or older, with no history of diabetes, and were 15 to 27 weeks of pregnancy between September 1998 and June 2004.
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