Section snippets

Methods

A randomized two-arm, parallel group trial (clinicaltrials.gov id: NCT04376021) was conducted between February 2018 (first participant enrolled February 7, 2018) and June 2019 to study the effects of an infant career intervention on postpartum depression symptomatology, breastfeeding rates, and parent-infant bonding in collaboration with a home visiting program for perinatal parents in a primarily Latinx, income-constrained urban community. The breastfeeding results are reported previously by 

Participant characteristics

A total of 238 participants were assessed for eligibility, with 138 excluded and 100 randomized during pregnancy into the intervention (n = 50) or waitlist control (n = 50) conditions (see the Consort Diagram in Fig. 1).
Demographic characteristics are presented in Table 1, with all participants identifying as female (hereafter referred to as mothers). Mothers in the intervention and control groups had similar intentions to breastfeed and had similar demographic and health characteristics except 

Main findings

In experimentally testing the efficacy of an infant carrier intervention to reduce postpartum depression symptomatology, we found that participants randomly assigned to receive an infant carrier reported significantly fewer depressive symptoms at 6-weeks postpartum than participants in the waitlist control group. Further, there was good uptake of the carrier intervention (79.5 % of participants in intervention groups used their carriers in the first 6-weeks postpartum), although there was no

Conclusion

Postpartum depression and other mood disorders cost an estimated $14.2 billion per year in the US (Luca et al., 2019) and have health consequences for both the birthing parent and the child (Slomian et al., 2019). Our research demonstrates that providing parents with an ergonomic infant carrier may be an easy and effective intervention to decrease depressive symptomatology during the high-risk period of the first weeks after birth. To understand the generalizability of this intervention, we

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Dr. Little led the study design, data collection, and manuscript preparation. Lisa Bain helped with intervention implementation plan, participant recruitment, and data collection efforts. Dr. Hahn-Holbrook helped to design the study, conducted all analyses, and reviewed and revised the manuscript. All authors approved the final manuscript as submitted and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Details of ethics approval

All procedures received ethics approval from the relevant ethics committee responsible for human experimentation: Institutional Review Board for Project Concern International, now Global Communities (approved protocol # 28).

Funding

ErgoBaby donated all infant carriers used in this study but did not participate in any part of the research.

Uncited references

Little et al., 2018
Pisacane et al., 2012

Conflict of interest

ErgoBaby donated all infant carriers used in this study but did not participate in any part of the research. The authors have no other financial, personal, political, intellectual, or religious relationships relevant to this article to disclose.

Acknowledgments

The study protocol was developed in partnership with California Border Healthy Start (CBHS), a program of Project Concern International (now Global Communities). The program began operation in 2007 and is funded through the National Healthy Start initiative, which aims to address disparities in birth outcomes. The authors appreciate the support of CBHS staff (especially Alejandra Leon) in helping with the protocol design; recruitment and retention of study participants; and the provision of