Results for mothers who had been assessed as at risk of
depression during pregnancy are shown in Table 5. For this
group, results are less well defined, at least in part because of
the smaller sample size. Our findings suggest that among
women who had planned to breastfeed, breastfeeding is
associated with a lower risk of PPD (as for mothers not
depressed during pregnancy, although with a much smaller
effect). However, for previously depressed mothers, there
may also be a protective effect from breastfeeding when
mothers had not planned to breastfeed. These results should
be interpreted with caution: the only significant effect was
found on EPDSmeasured at 8 weeks and for at least 4 weeks’
exclusive breastfeeding (OR 0.42; 95 % CI 0.20, 0.90).