A study depicted that in females scheduled to undergo elective cesarean section with combined spinal-epidural anesthesia, treatment with transcranial electrical stimulation can effectively alleviate peripartum mental health disorders, including anxiety and depressive symptoms, and has been reported to be a new approach to improve peripartum mental health diseases.

Qiu Zhao et al. undertook a pilot randomized clinical trial to investigate efficacy of transcranial electrical stimulation for relieving peripartum anxiety and depression. In this double-blind, sham-controlled study, 148 full-term parturients giving birth by cesarean section were chosen, and 126 were incorporated in the intent-to-treat assessment. Eligible parturients were offered standardized anesthesia and randomly allocated to the sham- transcranial electrical stimulation group (N = 64) and active- transcranial electrical stimulation (N = 62) group.

The parturients and outcome assessors were blinded to therapy allocation. Alterations in peripartum mental health diseases, including anxiety, evaluated by Pregnancy-Related Anxiety Questionnaire-Revised 2 (PRAQ-R2) was the major endpoint ascertained while peripartum depressive symptoms, evaluated by Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, sleep quality index, maternal satisfaction, level of fatigue, and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) score during and post-surgery were the secondary endpoints ascertained.

Collection of data was done prior to entering the surgery room (T0), between post-anesthesia and pre-surgery (T1), prior to leaving surgery room (T2), and at 24 hours after surgery (T3). Transcranial electrical stimulation therapy led to considerably reduced scores of anxiety when compared to sham-transcranial electrical stimulation.

Furthermore, a considerable drop in depression scores was noted in the active-transcranial electrical stimulation groups. Hence, transcranial electrical stimulation therapy can effectively relieve peripartum mental health disorders.