RESEARCH ROUNDUP

Depression and anxiety disorders are reported to affect 19% and 13% of postpartum individuals, respectively. However, since it has been demonstrated that physical activity improves depression and anxiety outcomes in non-pregnant populations, Deprato et al (2024) undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the relationship between postpartum exercise and depression and anxiety outcomes.

The authors evaluated 35 studies, which included 4072 participants, and found that moderate-certainty evidence from randomised controlled trials showed that exercise-only interventions reduced the severity of postpartum depressive and anxiety symptoms. In addition, the odds of postpartum depression were reduced by 45% compared with no exercise. It was found that ‘[i]nitiating the exercise intervention prior to 12 weeks postpartum was associated with a greater reduction in postpartum depressive symptoms.’

A MET is the ratio of an individual's working metabolic rate relative to their resting metabolic rate and is a means of describing the intensity of an exercise or any activity. The authors recommend that to achieve a moderate effect size in reducing the severity of depressive symptoms, postpartum individuals should undertake at least 350 MET-min/week of exercise. For example, ‘80 min of moderate intensity exercise such as brisk walking, water aerobics, stationary cycling, resistance training over a minimum of 4 days per week.’