The short- and long-term effectiveness of mother-infant psychotherapy on postpartum depression: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: It has been suggested that mother-infant psychotherapy may offer an alternative approach to treating postpartum depression, but little is known about its effectiveness. This review presents a summarized effectiveness of mother-infant psychotherapy on postpartum depression.

Methods: Multiple electronic databases were searched including Pubmed, Cochrane Library, EMBase, MEDLINE, et al. Hand searching of references was also performed. Randomized controlled trials reporting on mother-infant psychotherapy targeting postpartum depression were included if they used a validated measure of prescribing appropriateness. Evidence quality was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool.

Results: A total of 13 randomized controlled trials met inclusion criteria and were included in the final analysis. In the short-term effect analysis, mother-infant psychotherapy reduced standardized mean depressive scores (-0.25, 95% CI -0.40, -0.09) and risk ratio (0.71, 95% CI 0.55, 0.91). In the long-term effect analysis, mother-infant psychotherapy did not improve maternal mood, mother-infant interaction and infant attachment.

Limitations: Clinical heterogeneity was observed among included studies in mother-infant psychotherapy intervention, suggesting the existence of potential moderators such as intensity, frequency, trimester of pregnancy or type of mother-infant psychotherapy.

Conclusion: Mother-infant psychotherapy appears to be effective for the treatment of maternal depression in the short-term. Future studies with better design/execution and larger sample size are needed to confirm the effect of mother-infant psychotherapy on short-term and to explore its effect on long-term depression.