CHANGES IN DEPRESSION DURING AND FOLLOWING PREGNANCY

Rates of depression were studied in a sample of over 9000 women who we re participants in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childh ood. Assessments of depression were made at 18 and 32 weeks gestation, and at 8 and 32 weeks postpartum. Changes in depressive status across time were modelled using latent Markov modelling methods. This analys is showed that when classification errors were taken into account ther e was relatively high stability in diagnostic status during pregnancy and after pregnancy. However, the transition from late pregnancy to th e early postnatal period showed evidence of increased instability and remission of depression. The net effects of this were that rates of de pression tended to decline following childbirth. The implications of t hese results for a series of issues including measurement errors in de pression reports and the prevalence of depression before and after chi ldbirth are discussed.