Abstract:

Background: Approximately 10-15% of women suffer from depression this rep a considerable public health problem affecting women and their families. Postpartum non-psychotic depression is the most common after birth.

Objective: this study aimed to assess prevalence of postpartum depression among mothers with children less than 6 months attending clinic at BMC.

Methodology: this was prospective cross sectional study which include 255 mothers with children less than 6 months attending clinic at BMC interviewed by using Edinburg postnatal depression (EPDS). Data was collected by using questionnaire and data entry was done in excel and analysis using SPSS version 17.

Results: most of mothers who participated in the study were aged between 21-30 years (40.4%) compared to 25.5% who were aged more than 30 years and( 34.%.) also( 47.1%) of participants had secondary school education while (2.4%) didn’t go to school at all. (43%) were entrepreneurs 18.8% were not employed at all. Of 255 mothers who participated 100 (39.2%) were found to be depressed where 155(60.8%) were not depressed. In this study association was found between all social demographic characteristics except relationship with partner

Conclusion: this is high prevalence 39.2% of depression among mothers with children less than six months attending clinics at BMC. This high prevalence of depression was associated with age, work and level education, marriage and income per month of the participants