Table 1.

Demographics of participants

	Controls	PMD
n	25	18
Age (yr),a mean ± sd	33.3 ± 8.2	40.2 ± 6.2
Body mass index (kg/m2), mean ± sd	25.0 ± 6.0	27.7 ± 5.9
Psychiatric history (number of women)
Major depression episodes	0	5
CTQ scores
Moderate-severe exposure	5	5
No exposure	13	10

All women were in good medical health confirmed by medical history, physical exam, neurological exam, gynecological exam, PAP smear within the last year, laboratory tests, and electrocardiogram. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), assesses five types of maltreatment, each out of a 25-point scale: emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect (33). Using cutoffs specified by Heim and colleagues (59), participants were grouped by moderate-severe exposure to childhood trauma (consistent with scores of emotional abuse > 12, physical abuse > 9, sexual abuse > 7, emotional neglect > 14, and physical neglect > 9) or no such exposure. Completed CTQ scales were available in only 33 participants (15 PMD, 18 controls). Based on the scores, the participants were split into two groups: one with moderate-severe exposure to trauma (n = 10) and one without exposure to trauma (n = 23). Five of 15 women with PMD (33%) reported moderate-severe exposure to trauma.

^aP < 0.01 by two-sample t test with Bonferroni adjusted P value.