Monday, February 25, 2008

Panic and pregnancy

Female reproductive hormones can have a significant influence on anxiety disorders throughout a woman's life but little is known about the interactions between pregnancy and panic disorder (PD) which can affect between 1-3.8% of women over the course of their lives and is twice as frequent in women. Researchers in Turkey assessed 512 women in the third trimester of pregnancy for panic disorder and also compared 13 pregnant women with panic disorder to 19 non-pregnant controls. Among all the pregnant women the prevalence rate for PD was 2.5%. Among the 13 pregnant women with PD 7 had developed it during their pregnancy while the other 6 were suffering from it before they became pregnant. There was no difference between the pregnant and non-pregnant women as far as the severity of PD symptoms was concerned.

Guler, Ozkan ... [et al] - The prevalence of panic disorder in pregnant women during the third trimester of pregnancy Comprehensive Psychiatry 2008, 49, 154-158

No comments: