Nearly two in three mothers of babies born early showed signs of depression, according to a University of Ghana master's thesis. Of 407 mothers surveyed in the Greater Accra Region, 256 (62.9%) screened positive.
The mothers had babies admitted to newborn intensive care at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital and Tema General Hospital between July 2024 and January 2025. They were picked from hospital registers by systematic sampling and completed structured questionnaires.
Depression was measured with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, a standard 10-question screening tool. A score of 12 or more counted as depression. This is a screening result, not a clinical diagnosis.
The author notes that the rate is higher than many studies abroad. A review she cites put depression among mothers of preterm babies at about 40% just after birth.
Mothers without a family support system had about three and a half times the odds of depression of those with support. Mothers with basic, secondary or tertiary education had lower odds than those with no formal education.
Only 27.7% of mothers had sought professional counselling. Most relied on self-care, relaxation or family and friends.
The study has important limits. It covered two hospitals that take many complicated cases. Six in ten of the births were by caesarean section, and almost half of the babies had major health problems.
Mothers were recruited during or soon after the hospital stay; the methods also include mothers attending child welfare clinics after discharge. The author says the rate may partly reflect short-term distress rather than lasting depression. The study is a single cross-sectional screen and does not follow mothers over time.
The design shows links, not causes, and answers may be affected by how comfortable women felt reporting symptoms. Some results in the thesis are hard to interpret, so they are not reported here. It is a single master's study, not a national estimate.
The author argues that care for these mothers must go beyond the purely medical. She recommends that the Ministry of Health, the Ghana Health Service and the Mental Health Authority build routine mental health screening into follow-up care for mothers of preterm babies. She also calls for psychological support in neonatal units and sessions to teach families how to spot postnatal depression.
Source: Emelia Koranteng, MPH thesis, University of Ghana, 2025. Full document: https://ugspace.ug.edu.gh/handle/123456789/45006