ReviewNeuropsychiatric disease and treatment2023
Oxytocin and Women Postpartum Depression: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials.
Review in Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Identification of risk loci for postpartum depression in a genome-wide association study.Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2024Pooled it
- Intrapartum Oxytocin and Maternal Outcomes Following Vaginal and Unscheduled Cesarean Delivery.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Physiological Mechanisms in Pregnancy and Their Relevance to the Clinical Management of Perinatal Mental Illness.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- The role of serum oxytocin levels in the third trimester of pregnancy in the incidence of postpartum depressive symptoms.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Probiotic L. reuteri treatment in stressed rats improves maternal care and corrects corticosterone-BDNF-oxytocin balance offering insights for maternal postpartum distress treatment.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Activation of the Oxytocin System in the Hypothalamic Paraventricular Nucleus Improves Stress-Induced Postpartum Depression-Like Behavior in Rats.Actas espanolas de psiquiatria · 2025Article
- Oxytocin in the Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders.Medeniyet medical journal · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Previous studies have demonstrated that oxytocin was a viable therapy option for postpartum depression. However, the role remains controversial. To evaluate the efficacy of oxytocin on women postpartum depression, we searched PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and EmBase for literatures from inception of the database to April 18th, 2022. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that investigated the effects of oxytocin on postpartum depression were selected for this study. Six RCTs (195 women) were gathered. The effects of oxytocin were roughly divided into emotion and cognition. The modulation of oxytocin to women's emotion was demonstrated in four of the trials. The results were conflicting: One trial showed that oxytocin alleviated the depressive mood; two trials showed that oxytocin had no effect (but reduce negative thoughts in healthy mothers, or decrease the narcissistic trait); another trial showed that oxytocin aggravated depression. Women's cognition was shown to be regulated by oxytocin in four of the trials. In general, oxytocin enhanced postpartum depressive women's perception of their relationship with the infants. This systematic review showed that the effect of oxytocin on postpartum depression is still uncertain. We partly support that exogenous oxytocin might improve the cognition of women with postpartum depression to their infants, while the effect on emotion is still controversial. Further RCTs with larger samples and more diversified evaluation criteria are needed to better reveal its efficacy on postpartum depression.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.