Background: This was a hospital registry-based retrospective age-matched cohort study that aimed to compare pregnancy and neonatal outcomes of women with pre-existing mental disorders with those of mentally healthy women. Methods: A matched cohort retrospective study was carried out in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hospital of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Kauno Klinikos, a tertiary health care institution. Medical records of pregnant women who gave birth from 2006 to 2015 were used. The study group was comprised of 131 pregnant women with mental disorders matched to 228 mentally healthy controls. The primary outcomes assessed were antenatal care characteristics; secondary outcomes were neonatal complications. Results: Pregnant women with pre-existing mental health disorders were significantly more likely to have low education, be unmarried and unemployed, have a disability that led to lower working capacity, smoke more frequently, have chronic concomitant diseases, attend fewer antenatal visits, gain less weight, be hospitalized during pregnancy, spend more time in hospital during the postpartum period, and were less likely to breastfeed their newborns. The newborns of women with pre-existing mental disorders were small for gestational age (SGA) more often than those of healthy controls (12.9% vs. 7.6%, p < 0.05). No difference was found comparing the methods of delivery. Conclusions: Women with pre-existing mental health disorders had a worse course of pregnancy. Mental illness increased the risk to deliver a SGA newborn (RR 2.055, 95% CI 1.081–3.908).

Background and Objectives: Research from recent decades provides strong evidence of an association between childhood adversity and later mental illness in adulthood. The current study analyzed the frequency and intensity of exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in a clinical sample of patients with mood disorders. Effect sizes for each ACE were also evaluated for the onset of depressive disorders (DD) and bipolar disorder (BD). Materials and Methods: A study enrolled total of 147 patients admitted to the Psychiatry Department with diagnoses of DD or BD between October 2018 and December 2019. The control group comprised 156 healthy volunteers. Psychiatric diagnoses were assessed using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), version 6.0. Adverse childhood experiences were assessed using a self-administered Adverse Childhood Experiences - International Questionnaire (ACE-IQ). Results: Results indicated that patients with mood disorders had significantly more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) compared to controls. The occurrence of high ACEs exposure (≥4 ACEs) was also notably greater among these patients. Higher cumulative ACEs scores correlated with increased likelihoods of depressive disorders (DD) and bipolar disorder (BD). Factors such as emotional and physical neglect, sexual abuse, household mental illness, having an incarcerated household member, collective violence, parental separation or death significantly raised the odds of DD. Similarly, household mental illness, emotional neglect, parental separation or death, and household substance abuse, collective violence significantly elevated the odds for BD. Multivariate binary logistic regression identified emotional neglect and household mental illness as independent predictors of DD and BD. Conclusions: Our results highlight a significant association between adverse childhood experiences and mood disorders. Early recognition of adversity in childhood and adolescence, and appropriate interventions, must play an important role in the prevention of mood disorders.