Journal of Women's Health Care
Open Access
ISSN: 2167-0420
ISSN: 2167-0420
Etsuko Takagi
Japan University of Health Sciences, Japan
Keynote: J Women's Health Care
The purpose of this study is to clarify the effect that depressive symptoms in couples after childbirth have on couples. The subjects were 42 couples consisting of a pregnant woman and her partner who visited the municipal office of a city to receive a maternal and child health handbook (Boshi Kenko Techo), who responded to a second survey. And qualitative data was collected from 6 fathers within them. The correlation between the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression (CES-D) score and the Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) were verified. Whereas depressive symptoms in wives were identified to have a connection with only the item of self, husbands were identified to have a correlation with some wife’s items: Physical functioning (-0.398, p=0.009), general health (-0.308, p=0.047) during pregnancy, role physical (-0.347, p=0.025), general health (-0.389, p=0.011), role emotional (-0.341, p=0.027) after birth. In either case the greater the depressive symptoms, the lower the degree of mental and physical health. Furthermore, it was documented that the relationship with a wife who has strong morning sickness and a wife’s depressive symptoms are sources of stress to husbands. It became clear that the husbands’ mental condition after childbirth is susceptible to the wife’s influence. When the degree of the wife’s’ physical and mental health is low, rather than considering husband’s as a person in charge of housekeeping and child rearing, there is a need to also consider as an object of support. We need to develop child rearing support as a population approach for fathers.
Etsuko Takagi has completed her Masters from University of Tokyo and PhD from Tokyo Women’s Medical University. She has licenses of Nurse, Midwife and Public Health Nurse. She has worked as a Midwife for 6 years and as a Public Health Nurse for 4 years. She has published papers related to maternal, paternal and child health in community health in Japan.
E-mail: etsuko2takagi@gmail.com