Women who have depressive symptoms early in pregnancy are more likely to deliver their babies prematurely than those without such symptoms, a new study has found.

The large US, non-profit healthcare group Kaiser Permanente, which was behind the study, had already begun using a simple questionnaire to screen for depressive symptoms in pregnant women in a pilot project in northern California and is expecting to using it more widely, said the study’s lead author, De-Kun Li, senior research scientist at the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute, Oakland, California.

The study reported that 41% of women in early pregnancy had significant depressive symptoms and 22% had severe symptoms. In comparison …