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Record W4413344415 · doi:10.1101/2025.08.15.25333775

Postpartum anxiety and depression symptoms in non-birthing parents in Canada: A cross-sectional study

2025· preprint· en· W4413344415 on OpenAlexaffabout
Justine Dol, Christine T. Chambers, Emily E. Cameron, Cindy‐Lee Dennis, Jennifer M. Goldberg, Jennifer A. Parker

Bibliographic record

VenuemedRxiv · 2025
Typepreprint
Languageen
FieldMedicine
TopicMaternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
Canadian institutionsMcMaster UniversityDalhousie UniversityUniversity of TorontoLunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research InstituteSimon Fraser UniversityIzaak Walton Killam Health Centre
Fundersnot available
KeywordsCross-sectional studyAnxietyDepression (economics)Postpartum depressionPsychologyPsychiatryMedicineClinical psychologyPregnancy

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

PURPOSE: To determine the prevalence of postpartum depression and anxiety symptoms in nonbirthing parents, overall and by sex, gender, and sexual orientation. BACKGROUND: The postpartum period is a vulnerable time for parents. Although the focus of most research is on the birthing parent, evidence of postpartum mental health challenges for nonbirthing parents is lacking. METHODS: An online cross-sectional study was conducted with nonbirthing parents from across Canada who had an infant <12 months of age. Recruitment occurred through social media and an online survey company. Parents completed questionnaires, including the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and General Anxiety Disorder (GAD). Scores >9 and >10 on the EPDS and GAD, respectively, were considered positive for postpartum depression and anxiety symptoms. T-tests were used to determine differences based on sex, gender, and sexual orientation. RESULTS: A total of 133 nonbirthing parents participated (54.9% first-time parents, 90.2% fathers). Overall, 56.4% of nonbirthing parents had postpartum depression, 23.3% had postpartum anxiety, and 21.8% had comorbid postpartum anxiety and depression. There were no differences based on sex or gender; however, sexual minority parents had a significantly higher prevalence of both postpartum depression (73.3%) and anxiety symptoms (46.7%) than heterosexual parents (52.5% and 16.8%), respectively. DISCUSSION: The postpartum mental health of nonbirthing parents is of critical concern with one in two experiencing symptoms of depression and one in 4 experiencing symptoms of anxiety. IMPLICATION FOR PRACTICE AND RESEARCH: More work is needed to better support nonbirthing parents during their first year postpartum.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.001
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.001
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Observational · Consensus signal: Observational
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.055
Threshold uncertainty score0.111

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0010.001
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0000.000
Bibliometrics0.0010.002
Science and technology studies0.0030.000
Scholarly communication0.0010.000
Open science0.0010.000
Research integrity0.0000.001
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0010.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.017
GPT teacher head0.311
Teacher spread0.294 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designObservational
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations0
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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