Efficacy of Prenatal Yoga in the Treatment of Depression and Anxiety during Pregnancy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Women commonly suffer from depression during pregnancy. For reducing depression, yoga seems to be more suitable for pregnant women than other physical activities because of its low exercise intensity. The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of prenatal yoga on the treatment of depression during pregnancy. Three electronic databases were searched for relevant articles from their inception to May 2021, including PubMed, Cochrane Library, and ScienceDirect. Pre- and post-test outcomes were adopted to estimate standardized mean difference with a 95% confidence interval for assessing the efficacy of yoga. Heterogeneity among articles was detected using I-2 value. A total of 13 articles that contained 379 subjects were included for meta-analysis. No significant improvement in depression scores after practicing yoga was observed for women without depression (p = 0.09) but significant improvement was observed for women with depression (p = 0.001). Although significant improvement in anxiety scores after yoga was observed for women without depression (p = 0.02), the results of the sensitivity analysis were not consistent, while significant improvement in anxiety scores after yoga was also observed for women with depression (p < 0.00001). The current evidence has suggested that yoga had significant improvement in depression and anxiety scores in pregnant women with depression. However, the level of evidence of this study was not high. More articles with high levels of evidence should be conducted to confirm our conclusion in the future.