Association between Body Mass Index and Depression Symptom of Postpartum Women: A Cross-Sectional Study

OBJECTIVES: Postpartum depression (PPD) is the most common disorder for women after childbirth. The adverse long-term effects of PPD on women, infants, and families are increasingly recognized as a major public health issue. Body weight, as measurement of nutritional status, is considered to play a role in the development of depression in gestation women. However, few studies have sought to explore the association between body weight and PPD in the postpartum period. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between body mass index (BMI) and depression of postpartum women within 2 years. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 554 postpartum women who set up files after delivery 6 weeks to 2 years at 10 community health service centers in Beijing from July to September 2017. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) was used to measure the status of depression. The height and the current body weight were gathered from the physical examination files at the health service centers. The association of BMI with PPD were estimated by logistic regression. RESULTS: In all the 554 subjects, there were 11.7% of overweight and 3.4% of obese. The prevalence of PPD in postpartum women was 29.4% above the EPDS cut-off score (≥13 scores). The prevalence of PPD was 17.5% in marasmus BMI group, 25.6% in normal group, 30.8% in overweight group, and 43.8% in obese group. After statistical adjustment for age and society correlation factors, obese group (OR = 1.342, 95%CI: 1.053–1.710) had a higher risk of PPD (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The present study found that BMI is associated with PPD in Chinese women after delivery within 2 years. Obese may be a risk factor for postpartum women. FUNDING SOURCES: This study was funded by grants from Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (2019-I2M-2-007).