Does counseling affect parental postpartum depression?

Introduction and objectives: During pregnancy and after childbirth, parents experience new roles and responsibilities, which may affect their mood and lead to postpartum depression. The present study examines the effects of counseling on postpartum depression in parents. Materials and methods: The study is a clinical trial on 76 couples from Urmia, Iran. The samples were chosen from week 34 of pregnancy to 6 months after childbirth and randomly assigned to control (38 couples) and intervention (38 couples) groups. The control group received routine care, while parents in the intervention group received routine care plus five counseling sessions. All the women and their spouse in the control and intervention groups were assessed with the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale at the beginning of study, 2 and 6 months after childbirth. Descriptive statistics tests and t-test were used to extract the results. P-values less than 0.05 were considered significant. Findings: Mean Edinburgh depression score 2 months after childbirth was higher for control group mothers (10.18 ± 1.53) as compared with the intervention group (8.21 ± 1.43). This was statistically significant. The mean Edinburgh depression scores for fathers in the control and intervention groups were 6.92 ± 1.51 and 6.36 ± 1.42, respectively, but this difference was not statistically significant. Also, the mean Edinburgh depression scores 6 months after childbirth were found to be higher for the control group mothers (p = 0.001) and fathers (p = 0.019), and this was statistically significant. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that couple-based counseling significantly decreased depression scores of nulliparous women within 2-6 months after delivery. However, the interventions failed to have effects on fathers within 2 months after childbirth and only proved statistically effective after 6 months

Breastfeeding Needs in Adolescent Mothers: A systematic review

Adolescent mothers face numerous challenges while breastfeeding. The purpose of the study was to assess the breastfeeding needs of adolescent mothers. Two researchers independently searched the databases Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library, SID, and Magiran. The initial search yielded 2290 studies, of which 41 were eventually included in this systematic review. Breastfeeding requirements of adolescent mothers were categorized into eight categories: 1. Social support from health care providers, partners, and families; 2. School support for breastfeeding mothers, 3. Receiving breastfeeding counseling based on cultural sensitivities, 4. Educational assistance from health providers for adolescent mothers' families 5. Changing harmful cultural values and judgments about adolescent mothers' breastfeeding, 6. Additional home or outpatient visits in the days following hospital discharge; 7. Peer support and peer counseling, 8. Economic needs.  To promote breastfeeding, policymakers and healthcare providers ought to devise specifically tailored programs and interventions to cater to the specific requirements of mothers. Keywords: Breastfeeding; Adolescent Mothers; Infant Feeding; Need; Qualitative Study

Exploring Health Providers’ Perspective Regarding the Needs of Adolescent Mothers During Breastfeeding: A Qualitative Study

Background: The prevalence of breastfeeding is less common among adolescent mothers than adultmothers. These mothers experience various issues during breastfeeding. The present study aimed toexplore the normative needs of adolescent mothers during breastfeeding from health care providers’perspective.Methods: This qualitative content analysis study was conducted from October 2022 until June 2023.14 health care providers who had worked in the field of breast milk were purposefully selected withmaximum variation. Face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted and sampling continueduntil data saturation. Data analysis was performed using Graneheim and Lundman’s method withMAXQDA software version 10.Results: The main concepts obtained from the data were classified into one theme entitled,“comprehensive support”, and seven categories including “need to correct wrong traditional beliefs”,“educational and counseling needs”, “providing quality services”, “need for psychological support”,“need for protective laws”, “financial needs”, and “the need for social network support”.Conclusion: Adolescent mothers in Iran have various needs during breastfeeding, and they requirethe assistance of their families, healthcare providers, and the government to fulfill them. Therefore, itis also recommended that policymakers in the health system should design policies to accommodatethe requirements of this group of mothers. In addition to policy development in the health system, theinfrastructure required for policy and law to be executed should be considered