Association between neonatal homecare for preterm infants and incidence of severe postpartum depression in mothers.

Background: Understanding the association between neonatal homecare and postpartum depression could contribute to the design of evidence-based interventions to prevent postpartum depression. We aimed to determine whether the change from inpatient stays in neonatal intensive care units to offering neonatal homecare was associated with a reduced incidence rate of severe postpartum depression among mothers who gave birth prematurely.

Methods: We conducted a register-based population-wide study of all mothers who gave birth prematurely 1994-2017 to live-born infants and spent at least one night in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.