Psychiatria polskaOct 14, 2006

Bright light therapy for depression in pregnant women: 3 case studies

Circadian Biology Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗

Updated Mar 28, 2026

Abstract

The mean improvement of depressive symptoms after 2 and 4 weeks of bright light therapy (BLT) was 33% and 55%, respectively.

Bright light therapy involves exposure to 5,000 LUX of light for one hour each morning, five days a week.
Treatment was administered to three pregnant women diagnosed with depression during their second and third trimesters.
No side effects were reported by any of the participants throughout the treatment period.
Further research is needed to explore the optimal duration and maintenance of bright light therapy.

Simplified

AIM: Bright light therapy (BLT) is a new method of biological treatment in psychiatry. Good tolerance makes it an attractive method used not only in seasonal affective disorder. An episode of depression during pregnancy may be a new indication. The study aimed to describe effects of treatment of depression in 3 pregnant women.

METHOD: The women were out-patients in their 6-th, 7-th and 8-th months of pregnancy and diagnosed with depression according to ICD-10 criteria. The treatment was a morning exposure to 1 hour 5 000 LUX bright light from Monday to Friday. The antidepressant effect was assessed after the 2nd and 4th week of BLT. Side effects of BLT were monitored over the whole BLT treatment period.

RESULTS: The mean improvement of depressive symptoms after 2 and 4 weeks of BLT was 33% and 55%, respectively. Side effects were not observed in any of the patients.

CONCLUSIONS: Morning BLT seems to be an effective and a very well tolerated mode of treatment of pregnant women suffering from non-seasonal depression. The manner and length of BLT maintenance treatment requires further studies.

Bright light therapy for depression in pregnant women: 3 case studies

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