Is there an association between premenstrual symptoms and perinatal mood disorders? Study finds out

Premenstrual disorders like PMS or PMDD and perinatal depression are similar in the way that symptoms appear in connection with hormonal changes.

The study, conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institute, analysed approximately 1,800,000 pregnancies that were registered in the Swedish Medical Birth Register between 2001 and 2018. Among these, they were able to identify nearly 85,000 women who suffered from perinatal depression. Additional national registers, such as the patient register and the drug register, were also used to identify women diagnosed with PMS or PMDD. These were then compared to a control group of nearly 850,000 birthing women who did not develop perinatal depression during the same period.

The results showed that women with premenstrual disorders were five times more likely to experience perinatal depression. Conversely, women who experienced perinatal depression were twice as likely to develop premenstrual disorders. The bidirectional association was noted for both prenatal and postnatal depression, regardless of history of psychiatric disorders.

"It is important that healthcare professionals who meet with women during pregnancy are aware of the link between premenstrual disorders and perinatal depression in order to provide well-informed advice," said Donghao Lu, Associate Professor at the Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute and last author of the paper.

Reference: Yang, Q., et al. (2024) The bidirectional association between premenstrual disorders and perinatal depression: A nationwide register-based study from Sweden. PLOS Medicine. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004363.