The COVID-19 pandemic is causing higher rates of depression and anxiety among new and expectant mothers, according to a new University of Calgary study.
“The rates are massively, massively elevated,” said U of C psychology associate professor Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen, one of the study’s co-authors.
“We’ve got an unprecedented problem.”
The study found that in a sample size of about 2,000 pregnant women in Canada in April, about 37 per cent reported symptoms of depression and 57 per cent reported symptoms of anxiety. Pre-pandemic statistics suggest 10 to 25 per cent of pregnant women show similar mental health systems.
Tomfohr-Madsen partially attributes the rise to increased social isolation, with many cut off from their usual support networks during the pandemic. The shift of some health appointments to teleconferencing and personal worries about contracting the novel coronavirus while pregnant also led to some anxiety, she says.
She adds that untreated mental health during pregnancies can have significant implications for families, including elevated mental health risk in children.
“These things very rarely remit on their own. If you’re pregnant and depressed, you’re probably going to be two years postpartum and still be depressed. Think about the impacts of that for your family,” she said.
Calgarian Amanda Jacques gave birth to her second child, Felix Bisson, by C-section in early May. She took part in the U of C study and said the pandemic introduced significant anxiety during her pregnancy.
“It was this huge worry about, if your young ones get sick, what would that look like? We really didn’t have much information,” Jacques said. “And I was certainly worried that my husband wouldn’t be able to come into the hospital for the birth, because that was a possibility at the time.”
Jacques’s due date coincided with the peak of the pandemic projected by early modelling, exacerbating worries.
“There was a lot of not knowing what it would spiral into,” she said.
The new study underlines the need for Canada to adopt a national strategy for perinatal mental health to support women in the period before and after they give birth, Tomfohr-Madsen said. Much like existing strategies in Great Britain or Australia, she says it would introduce universal mental health screening for pregnant women and more timely access to treatment.
A petition for a national strategy from the Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative was presented to the House of Commons in May by Edmonton-Strathcona NDP MP Heather McPherson. But in their July response , the federal government declined to introduce a perinatal mental health strategy, instead highlighting existing funding and programming.
“We recognize that everybody’s strapped for cash, but this is a very unique time in people’s lives when they’re interacting with the health system a lot,” Tomfohr-Madsen said.
“There’s a significant burden on people to go through their pregnancy and postpartum with untreated mental health issues.”
Tomfohr-Madsen said she hopes the federal government will reconsider introducing a strategy in light of her study showing worsening mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Twitter: @jasonfherring
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
