Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
Dear Editor,
We read with great interest the article by Avir Sarkar et al. entitled “The unheard parental cry of a stillbirth: fathers and mothers” [1]. The prospective cohort study concluded that the couples suffering stillbirths are at higher risk of depression, anxiety, and stress, and suggested that mental health screening should be highlighted, especially for the low-middle income countries. We would like to congratulate and thank for the authors for their excellent work, which has a significant clinical meaning. We would like to address some points that merit more attention.
Maternal mental disorders are often overlooked by obstetricians in clinical practice. It had been reported that substantially high prevalence rates of mental disorders were observed during pregnancy which urgently warrant more awareness for validated screening and adequate treatment options [2]. What was worse, when adverse pregnant outcome happened, these conditions might get worse. Similarly with stillbirth, recurrent pregnancy loss patients are more likely to develop depression and anxiety than women with no history of pregnancy loss [3]. Conversely, maternal mental disorders were also associated with adverse birth outcomes, mainly with preterm births [4].
During the COVID-19 epidemic, the level of depression of pregnant women was significantly higher than that before the epidemic [5]. We suggest that mental health screening should also be conducted in other adverse pregnancy outcomes, and we appeal for possible psychological interventions when indicated to avoid adverse events during the global pandemic.
We congratulate the authors and appreciate the editor for publishing such an interesting article.
References
Sarkar A, Siwatch S, Aggarwal N et al (2021) The unheard parental cry of a stillbirth: fathers and mothers. Arch Gynecol Obstet. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-021-06120-9
Wallwiener S, Goetz M, Lanfer A et al (2019) Epidemiology of mental disorders during pregnancy and link to birth outcome: a large-scale retrospective observational database study including 38,000 pregnancies. Arch Gynecol Obstet 299:755–763. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-019-05075-2
He L, Wang T, Xu H et al (2019) Prevalence of depression and anxiety in women with recurrent pregnancy loss and the associated risk factors. Arch Gynecol Obstet 300:1061–1066. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-019-05264-z
Kitai T, Komoto Y, Kakubari R et al (2014) A comparison of maternal and neonatal outcomes of pregnancy with mental disorders: results of an analysis using propensity score-based weighting. Arch Gynecol Obstet 290:883–889. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-014-3304-7
Dong H, Hu R, Lu C et al (2021) Investigation on the mental health status of pregnant women in China during the Pandemic of COVID-19. Arch Gynecol Obstet 303:463–469. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-020-05805-x
Funding
None.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
RH-X wrote this manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The author declares no conflict of interests.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Xue, RH. Letter to the editor on: “The unheard parental cry of a stillbirth: fathers and mothers”. Arch Gynecol Obstet 306, 563 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-021-06249-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-021-06249-7