Perceived Prenatal Maternal Stress and Depression among Pregnant Women in India

A plethora of studies have explored maternal mental health all across the globe; however, the studies concerning prenatal maternal stress (in specific domains) and depression are scarce. In addition, the existence of indigenous measures is also a rarity. The present study utilized the newly developed Perceived Prenatal Maternal Stress Scale (Gangadharan & Jena, 2019) and Beck Depression Inventory (Beck et al., 1961; Beck et al., 1988) to assess the prenatal maternal stress and depression in 18 second and third-trimester pregnant women ranging from 27 to 39 years of age. Further, a Spearman correlation was performed to obtain the magnitude of the relationship between Perceived Maternal Stress and Depression. The significance was tested using bootstrapping confidence intervals with 10000 iterations. Results indicate that the majority of the participants experienced prenatal maternal stress and depression ranging from moderate to severe during their pregnancy, where the majority of stress was attributed to a lack of perceived social support and financial concerns. Further, the results also indicated a moderate but significant association (r= .657) between these variables. Since the study was carried out during the Covid period, a complex amalgamation of pregnancy-related stress and the additional imposed workload due to the ongoing pandemic might have acted as a catalyst in compromising the perceived social support, intimate partner support, and other gestation-specific concerns. The study highlights the importance that pregnancy is a period of both physical and psychological distress, contrary to the common belief that it is an exciting journey for all women.