A history of eating disorders and body image concerns before or during pregnancy are associated with future depressive symptoms among mothers, finds a new study led by University College London.
Researchers used data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children to investigate long-term trajectories of depressive symptoms from the 18th week of pregnancy to 18 years postnatal in mothers with lifetime self-reported eating disorders.
Of 9276 women who participated in the study, 126 (1.4%) reported a prior diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, 153 (1.6%) of bulimia nervosa and 60 (0.6%) of both anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Women with an eating disorder at any timepoint in the past had greater depressive symptom scores than women with no eating disorders (anorexia nervosa: 2.10 [95% CI, 1.36-2.83]; bulimia nervosa: 2.28 [95% CI, 1.61-2.94]; both anorexia and bulimia nervosa: 2.86 [95% CI, 1.81-3.90]).
A dose-response association was also observed between greater body image and eating concerns in pregnancy and more severe trajectories of depressive symptoms, even after adjusting for lifetime eating disorders.
Presenting the findings in the British Journal of Psychiatry, the authors said: “More training for practitioners and midwives on how to recognise eating disorders in pregnancy could help to identify depressive symptoms and reduce the long-term burden of disease resulting from this comorbidity.”
