Mental health outcomes among Chinese prenatal and postpartum women after the implementation of universal two-child policy
Date
Authors
Duan, Zhizhou
Wang, Yuan Yuan
Wilson, Amanda D.
Yang, Yong
Zhu, Longjun
Guo, Yan
Yonglang, Lv
Yang, Xiaonan
Yu, Renjie
Wang, Shuilan
Wu, Zhengyan
Jiang, Ping
Xia, Mengqing
Wang, Guosheng
Wang, Xuixia
Tao, Ye
Li, Xiaohong
Ma, Ling
Huang, Liming
Dong, Qin
Shen, Hong
Sun, Jue
Li, Shun
Deng, Wei
Chen, Runsen
Advisors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Type
Peer reviewed
Abstract
Background Poor health status among both pregnant and postpartum women is commonly reported worldwide. The associations between mental health outcomes and giving birth to the second child since the implementation of China's universal two-child policy have not been identified.
Methods A large-scale based mental health survey was conducted between March 2017 and December 2018 in Suzhou, China. The survey evaluated the symptoms of anxiety, hypomania, depression and poor sleep quality among both pregnant and postpartum women.
Results A total of 3,113 questionnaires were collected, the prevalence of anxiety, hypomanic and depressive symptoms and poor sleep quality in our sample were 3.2% (95%CI: 2.6%-3.9%), 51.7% (95%CI: 49.9%-53.4%), 12.4% (95%CI: 11.3%-13.6%) and 37.8% (95%CI: 36.0%-39.5%), respectively. Logistic regression showed that giving birth to the second child was positively associated with women's age, and was negatively correlated with higher educational level and living in rented housing. Women with the second pregnancy or child were positively associated with anxiety symptoms in the whole sample (OR=1.75, 95%CI: 1.11-2.75) and among prenatal women (OR=2.11, 95%CI: 1.16-3.83), while it was inversely correlated with depressive symptoms among postpartum women (OR=0.63, 95%CI: 0.41-0.99).
Conclusions Women giving birth a second time were more prone to have anxiety symptoms among the prenatal women and the whole sample, and less likely to have depressive symptoms among the postpartum women. Efficacious measures and interventions are essential to improve maternal mental health.