Depression during pregnancy and low birth weight: a systematic literature review

A systematic review was conducted, focusing on the relationship between depression during pregnancy and increased risk of low birth weight. The review covered articles published in PubMed, SciELO, and ISIWEB using the key words "depression", "pregnancy", "birth weight" and "low birth weight". Ninety-nine studies were located, but after reading the abstracts only 10 articles were selected. According to criteria proposed by Downs & Black (1998) to assess the quality of the selected studies, only one was considered excellent, since it reached the maximum score of 20. Depression during pregnancy was associated with low birth weight in seven studies. Contradictions in the findings are due to differences in the scales used to evaluate depression, sample size, and insufficient control of important limiting factors for evaluating the results. Carefully designed studies are thus needed to elucidate the association between intra-gestational depression and low birth weight.