References
Male child preference: Is it a risk factor for antenatal depression among Iranian women?
Abstract
Background
Male child preference is a phenomenon in decline in Asian women. However, it continues to exert hidden pressure on childbearing women in developing countries to dispose them to depression during pregnancy.
Aims
This study assessed the prevalence of antenatal depression and hypothesised that maternal perception of a family's male child preference was an independent risk factor for depression.
Methods
This was a cross-sectional study of 780 pregnant women who attended routine antenatal appointments and were assessed using the Iranian version of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). The questionnaire investigated sociodemographic characteristics and some possible risk factors, including maternal perception of male child preference in the family. Analysis was done using c2 tests to assess the relationship between variables.
Findings
The prevalence of antenatal depression was 20.1%. Maternal perception of male child preference was common and was associated with antenatal depression. Husbands and their families were found to prefer to have a male child.
Conclusions
Consideration of the male child preference as an independent risk factor is important for health care providers to prevent depression.
Depression is increasingly recognised as a serious, worldwide public health concern and a cause of disability (Klainin et al, 2009). It is well known that pregnancy and the postpartum period may be windows of elevated susceptibility to depression (Dhillon et al, 2010). Prevalence of depression is more common during pregnancy than after delivery but there is a trend for depression to decrease during the postpartum period (Dhillon et al, 2010).
Antenatal depression is generally defined as any symptoms of depression during pregnancy (Lee et al, 2007). The prevalence of antenatal depression in the world is 7–30%, depending on the timing and scale of data collection (Abujilban et al, 2014), while the prevalence of depression during pregnancy in Iranian women is estimated to be 20–30.6% (Modabernia et al, 2009). It has been demonstrated that antenatal depression has a fundamental effect on the mother's health, and the growth and development of the newborn (Klainin et al, 2009).
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