ArticleBMC pregnancy and childbirth2021
Effect of perinatal depression on risk of adverse infant health outcomes in mother-infant dyads in Gondar town: a causal analysis.
Article in BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- The epidemiology of maternal mental health in Africa: a systematic review.Archives of women's mental health · 2025Pooled it
- Nutritional factors and cross-national postpartum depression prevalence: an updated meta-analysis and meta-regression of 412 studies from 46 countries.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Applications and reporting of causal inference modelling in infectious disease studies: A systematic review.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2026Article
- Anxiety symptoms during pregnancy and risk of adverse birth outcomes in Gondar Town Ethiopia.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Maternal mental health and nutritional status of infants aged under 6 months: A secondary analysis of a cross-sectional survey.PLOS global public health · 2024Article
- Supporting routine cognitive reactivity assessment during the perinatal period: psychometric testing of the Chinese version of the Leiden Index of Depression Sensitivity.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundApproximately one-third of pregnant and postnatal women in Ethiopia experience depression posing a substantial health burden for these women and their families. Although associations between postnatal depression and worse infant health have been observed, there have been no studies to date assessing the causal effects of perinatal depression on infant health in Ethiopia. We applied longitudinal data and recently developed causal inference methods that reduce the risk of bias to estimate associations between perinatal depression and infant diarrhea, Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI), and malnutrition in Gondar Town, Ethiopia.
methodsA cohort of 866 mother-infant dyads were followed from infant birth for 6 months and the cumulative incidence of ARI, diarrhea, and malnutrition were assessed. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) was used to assess the presence of maternal depression, the Integrated Management of Newborn and Childhood Illnesses (IMNCI) guidelines were used to identify infant ARI and diarrhea, and the mid upper arm circumference (MUAC) was used to identify infant malnutrition. The risk difference (RD) due to maternal depression for each outcome was estimated using targeted maximum likelihood estimation (TMLE), a doubly robust causal inference method used to reduce bias in observational studies.
resultsThe cumulative incidence of diarrhea, ARI and malnutrition during 6-month follow-up was 17.0% (95%CI: 14.5, 19.6), 21.6% (95%CI: 18.89, 24.49), and 14.4% (95%CI: 12.2, 16.9), respectively. There was no association between antenatal depression and ARI (RD = - 1.3%; 95%CI: - 21.0, 18.5), diarrhea (RD = 0.8%; 95%CI: - 9.2, 10.9), or malnutrition (RD = -7.3%; 95%CI: - 22.0, 21.8). Similarly, postnatal depression was not associated with diarrhea (RD = -2.4%; 95%CI: - 9.6, 4.9), ARI (RD = - 3.2%; 95%CI: - 12.4, 5.9), or malnutrition (RD = 0.9%; 95%CI: - 7.6, 9.5).
conclusionThere was no evidence for an association between perinatal depression and the risk of infant diarrhea, ARI, and malnutrition amongst women in Gondar Town. Previous reports suggesting increased risks resulting from maternal depression may be due to unobserved confounding.
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