Trajectories of mothers' perinatal depressive symptoms during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns: The protective role of romantic relationship quality.

Abstract

This study tracked depressive symptoms across the first year of parenthood in two cohorts of mothers recruited during pregnancy: one (n = 99) recruited before spring 2020, and one (n = 615) recruited during the first wave of pandemic lockdowns in spring 2020. We fit a series of multigroup covariance pattern models to our data. Within the pandemic cohort, symptoms were highest during pregnancy and decreased curvilinearly from pregnancy to 6 months postpartum, before leveling off by 12 months postpartum. Nonetheless, depressive symptoms were significantly higher in the pandemic cohort at all time points from pregnancy to 12 months compared to the prepandemic cohort. This effect was weaker among mothers who endorsed greater romantic relationship quality during pregnancy. Namely, pandemic-exposed mothers reporting high relationship quality showed trajectories of depressive symptoms that resembled the prepandemic sample. This evidence of sustained depression risk in pandemic-exposed mothers is of high public health concern given the consequences of perinatal mood disorders. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).