Maternity Blues: A Narrative Review.

Puerperium is a period of great vulnerability for the woman, associated with intense physical and emotional changes. Maternity blues (MB), also known as baby blues, postnatal blues, or post-partum blues, include low mood and mild, transient, self-limited depressive symptoms, which can be developed in the first days after delivery. However, the correct identification of this condition is difficult because a shared definition and well-established diagnostic tools are not still available.

Obstetric and psychosocial risk factors associated with maternity blues.

Aim: To identify risk factors for maternity blues (MB) and to evaluate the impact of obstetric factors on MB prevalence.

Materials And Methods: 194 mothers have completed the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) 2 days after delivery. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression models were used to identify the predictors of MB.

Personality disorders features in a sample of women with perinatal depression in Perugia, Italy.

Background: Antepartum depression (APD) and postpartum depression (PPD) are a significant public health problem. Aim of the study was to determine which personality disorders features could be found in women with APD and PPD compared to women without perinatal depression.

Subjects And Methods: The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) were administered during peripartum to a sample of 54 women recruited at the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Unit, Perugia (Italy).

Associations of acoustically measured tongue/jaw movements and portion of time speaking with negative symptom severity in patients with schizophrenia in Italy and the United States.

This is the first cross-language study of the effect of schizophrenia on speech as measured by analyzing phonetic parameters with sound spectrography. We hypothesized that reduced variability in pitch and formants would be correlated with negative symptom severity in two samples of patients with schizophrenia, one from Italy, and one from the United States. Audio recordings of spontaneous speech were available from 40 patients.

Perinatal depression: a study of prevalence and of risk and protective factors.

Background: International literature has shown that Postpartum Depression (PPD) has a significant social and relational impact on mothers and their partners, on the interaction between mother and child, as well as on the cognitive and emotional development of the child. The goal of this study is to increase the epidemiological knowledge of PPD and to evaluate both risk and protective factors.

Subjects And Methods: Our study is based on the administration of three tests, Paykel's Life Events Scale, EPDS and MMPI-2, at three distinct time point (during the third trimester, 72 hours after delivery, and three months after delivery, respectively) to a sample of women recruited in the Prenatal Medicine Clinic at the Hospital of Perugia.