Studies were eligible for inclusion if they assessed antenatal (at any point in pregnancy) or
postpartum (within a year after delivery) mental disorders in women who were overweight
or obese at the start of pregnancy. Studies were not eligible for the review if we were unable to extract or obtain data for overweight or obese women separately from normal-weight
women. Data from studies with overweight or obese women only were used in the
prevalence estimates but not for the evaluation of risk, which required normal-weight
controls. Both diagnostic and screening measures for mental disorders were accepted, as
were data extracted from routine records. Measures of stress, state anxiety or combined
mental disorders were not eligible, nor were disorder classifications based entirely on
medication status. Categorization of ‘pre-pregnancy’ overweight or obesity (based on
measured or self-reported BMI) was accepted from within a year pre-pregnancy or during
the first trimester, to prevent confounding by gestational weight gain. Only published, peerreviewed
English language papers were eligible. Data were accepted from cohort, casecontrol,
cross-sectional and intervention studies (baseline data only).