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Using a Murine Model of Psychosocial Stress in Pregnancy as a Translationally Relevant Paradigm for Psychiatric Disorders in Mothers and Infants
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Risk factors for prenatal depressive symptoms among Hispanic women

Renée Turzanski Fortner1, Penelope Pekow, Nancy Dole

  • 1Division of Biostatistics & Epidemiology, Department of Public Health, School of Public Health and Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts, 405 Arnold House, 715 North Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA 01003-9304, USA.

Maternal and Child Health Journal
|September 9, 2010
PubMed

Prior studies of risk factors for depressive symptoms during pregnancy are sparse and the majority have focused on non-Hispanic white women. Hispanics are the largest minority group in the US and have the highest birth rates. We examined associations between pre and early pregnancy factors and depressive symptoms in early pregnancy among 921 participants in Proyecto Buena Salud, an ongoing cohort of pregnant Puerto Rican and Dominican women in Western Massachusetts. Depressive symptoms were assessed by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (mean=13 weeks gestation) by bilingual interviewers who also collected data on sociodemographic, acculturation, behavioral, and psychosocial factors. A total of 30% of participants were classified as having depressive symptoms (EPDS scores>12) with mean+SD scores of 9.28+5.99. Higher levels of education (college/graduate school vs.

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