UGA study shows how some postpartum care changed during COVID-19 pandemic

ATHENS, Ga. — A new study undertaken by the University of Georgia is shedding light on how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted postpartum care for American mothers.

According to UGA researchers, more women filled benzodiazepine prescriptions during the pandemic, even though diagnoses of postpartum depression, anxiety and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) prescriptions did not increase.

The study found that “the pandemic didn’t lead to increases in postpartum depression or anxiety diagnoses.”

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However, there was a 15% increase in how many mothers with private health insurance filled prescriptions for antianxiety medications such as Valium, Xanax, Ativan and Klonopin, according to the university’s research.

Researchers found that SSRIs were not prescribed more often, even though they are “the gold standard for treating both depression and anxiety disorders.” Commonly prescribed SSRIs include Zoloft, Prozac and Lexapro, among others.

UGA researchers said SSRIs take time to take effect, while benzodiazepines, or “benzos” are sometimes used as “stopgap” prescriptions while patients begin using SSRIs. Benzodiazepines are known to carry significant risks of dependence and abuse.

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The U.S. Department of Justice lists benzodiazepines in its catalog of Schedule IV controlled substances. All four benzos mentioned in the UGA study are on that list.

However, the results of the study concerned researchers because of what they say they weren’t able to find during the study:

“What concerns me the most is not what we found but what we didn’t find,” Grace Bagwell Adams, lead author of the study and an associate professor in UGA’s College of Public Health, said. “You can’t tell me there wasn’t more depression and anxiety in this population during the pandemic. And historically, even pre-COVID, postpartum depression and anxiety has always been underdiagnosed. But we didn’t find an increase in diagnoses.”

UGA researchers said they put their study together by looking at insurance data for postpartum women over four years.

While there were reported increases in anxiety and depression across the board after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the researchers said there was no evidence that diagnoses of postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety had increased.

They said it was a sign that the underdiagnosis of the two conditions had been “exacerbated by the pandemic-induced health care crisis.”

“One of the top causes of maternal mortality is suicide,” Bagwell Adams said. “When these women don’t get diagnosed and they don’t receive proper treatment, they die. And it’s not that postpartum women didn’t see their doctor in time. It’s that they aren’t being listened to.”

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