Neonates in the Intensive Care Unit: Maternal Health-Related Quality of Life and Depression After Term and Preterm Births.

To examine maternal physical and mental health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and depression after early and late preterm and term births in the early postpartum period. In a prospective pilot study, three groups of women whose newborns had to be treated in the neonatal ward during the immediate postpartum period were established and compared with each other: 20 women with extremely to very preterm birth, 20 with moderate to late preterm birth and 20 women with term birth. All participants completed the Short Form-12 Health Survey (SF-12) to measure HRQoL, and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) to detect depressive symptoms combined with independently developed questions to evaluate anxiety and psychological distress. Maternal psychological HRQoL was significantly worse in the very preterm birth group compared to moderate to late preterm birth ( < 0.001) and full-term birth groups ( = 0.004). There were no differences between the birth groups in depressive symptoms ( = 0.083), anxiety ( = 0.238), perceived stress ( = 0.340) and the general psychological distress values ( = 0.755). In the EPDS, the depression screening instrument 30 to 65% were beyond the cut-off-value to detect major depression. During the early postpartum period, an extensive medical care focussing on acute stress, HRQoL parameters and depression may be a good step to improving maternal well-being.