Abstract
Becoming a mother is a fundamental life-transforming event characterized by high psychosocial distress. Most prenatal programming leaves women feeling unprepared for the realities of early parenthood. The purpose of this study was to design, implement, and evaluate a brief enhancement to existing prenatal programming, Welcome to Parenthood® (W2P). Using a single-group, longitudinal design, we implemented W2P with a community sample of 454 primiparous women via 11 Parent Link Centres in Alberta, Canada. The women completed questionnaires during late pregnancy, and 2 and 6 months postpartum to capture adverse childhood experiences (ACE), depressive symptoms (Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale; EPDS), and infant development (Ages and Stages Questionnaires; ASQs). Outcomes were compared with the naturalistic values from All Our Families community cohort from the same province and to the ASQ reference samples. By the end of W2P, depressive symptoms decreased significantly (p < .0001). The number of women with high depressive symptoms (EPDS ≥ 10) decreased almost by half, from 80 (17.6%) at enrollment to 41 (9.0%) at 6 months postpartum. Women with higher ACE had the greatest decrease in depressive symptoms. Infants in W2P had significantly better development than infants in reference samples. W2P is associated with improved maternal mood and infant development. Given that W2P is brief and uses natural supports, it may be integrated into existing prenatal programming for first-time mothers.
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Data availability
Data and meta-data will be available to other qualified researchers through Policy Wise, Secondary Analysis to Generate Evidence (SAGE). Welcome to Parenthood training modules and resources are available online.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to mothers, fathers, and mentors who participated in W2P. Jana Kurilova provided critical review of the manuscript.
Funding
The Ministry of Human Services, Government of Alberta provided funding.
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KB conceptualized the study and Welcome to Parenthood intervention and was responsible for the ethical and financial management of the study. KB wrote the first draft of the manuscript. MG conducted the time trajectory curve analyses and contributed to writing the final version of the manuscript. AA conducted the generalized least squares regression analysis and contributed to writing the data analysis section of the manuscript. ML implemented and monitored the fidelity of Welcome to Parenthood. All authors reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript.
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The University of Calgary Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board (Ethics ID 14-0557) approved the study.
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Participants provided written, informed consent to participate in the study according to the requirements of the Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board.
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Participants provided consent to present or publish data in aggregate form according to the requirements of the Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board.
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Benzies, K.M., Gasperowicz, M., Afzal, A. et al. Welcome to Parenthood is associated with reduction of postnatal depressive symptoms during the transition from pregnancy to 6 months postpartum in a community sample: a longitudinal evaluation. Arch Womens Ment Health 24, 493–501 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-020-01083-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-020-01083-3