Pregnancy outcomes among women with panic disorder - do panic attacks during pregnancy matter?

To assess the risks that maternal panic disorder (PD) during pregnancy contribute to adverse pregnancy outcomes, with the effects further specifically differentiated into mothers who experienced a panic attack during pregnancy and those who did not.

This study linked two nationwide population-based datasets: the birth certificate registry and the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Dataset. We identified a total of 371 women who gave birth from 2001 to 2003, who had been diagnosed with PD within 2 years prior to the index delivery, together with 1585 matched women without this chronic disease as a comparison cohort. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to estimate odds ratios.

Results indicated that compared to women without chronic disease, PD mothers who experienced panic manifestations during pregnancy and those who did not were independently associated with respective 2.29- (95% confidence interval (CI)=1.14-4.60) and 1.45-fold (95% CI=1.03-2.04) increased risks of having small-for-gestational-age infants. Further, for PD mothers who experienced a panic attack during gestation, the adjusted odds ratio for having a preterm delivery was 2.54 (95% CI=1.09-5.93), whereas no significant difference was identified between PD women who did not have a panic attack during pregnancy and women without PD.

Our study was unable to investigate the effects of such risk factors as dietary habits, cigarette smoking, and alcohol use in the regression model.

We conclude that prenatal PD, particularly the occurrence of panic attacks during pregnancy, was associated with adverse birth outcomes.