The following is a summary of “Prenatal mood and anxiety disorders and associated cytokine changes,” published in the December 2023 issue of Psychiatry by Mancuso et al.
In this study, researchers aimed to investigate potential associations between prenatal mood and anxiety disorders in pregnant women and the alterations in pro- and anti-inflammatory markers throughout the prenatal and postpartum periods. Their longitudinal analysis involved 179 pregnant women from urban areas who participated in six study visits where blood samples were collected for assessing inflammatory markers. Using the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV (SCID), participants scoring above cutoffs on anxiety and depression underwent evaluations. The study group compared pregnant women diagnosed with mood and/or anxiety disorders through SCID diagnoses against others on inflammatory markers. Multilevel modeling techniques were utilized to explore the connections between SCID diagnoses and interleukin (IL)6 and IL10 trajectories within individuals.
The findings revealed that SCID diagnoses during pregnancy exhibited significant associations with the linear, quadratic, and cubic changes in IL6 levels from prenatal to postpartum. Specifically, women diagnosed with prenatal SCID showed more pronounced decreases and increases in IL6 levels during both the prenatal and postpartum periods. Moreover, these SCID diagnoses were linked to lower IL10 levels from mid-pregnancy through the postpartum period. However, it’s important to note that future studies would benefit from larger sample sizes and a more substantial representation of participants with SCID diagnoses. Further research should aim to explore potential differential immune response patterns across various prenatal Axis 1 diagnoses.
Conclusively, their study suggests that pregnant women diagnosed with prenatal mood and anxiety disorders may experience greater fluctuations in IL6 levels across the prenatal and postpartum periods and consistently lower IL10 levels throughout pregnancy and postpartum. These findings indicate a potential ongoing proinflammatory state without a concurrent anti-inflammatory response following childbirth among women affected by prenatal mood and anxiety disorders.
Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032723014829
