Women with nonorganic psychosis: pregnancy's effect on mental health during pregnancy

The effect of pregnancy on women's mental health during pregnancy was studied by interview with 88 pregnant index cases with a history of nonorganic psychosis and 104 demographically similar pregnant controls, and by psychiatric records for the subsample of index cases with relevant information. Controls generally reported experiencing no change or only a slight worsening of mental health due to pregnancy, while index differentially reported improved or considerably worsened health. In total, worsening was more common than improvement in the index cases, and especially in those with a history of Schizophrenic, Psychogenic, Postpartum and Other Psychoses. Psychiatric record information suggested predominantly more improvement in the subsample with information, but this bore little systematic relation to the same women's reports at interview during pregnancy.