From the author: publication at a conference in Bulgaria According to a number of authors, pregnancy for a woman is a period of increased risk in relation to both somatic and mental health [2,3,6]. Mental disorders are detected in 30% of pregnant women, and 56% of them are depressive disorders of varying severity [3, p. 123]. In the studies of I.V. Pluzhnikov showed that one of the factors in the emergence of affective disorders (primarily depression and anxiety) is a low level of development of emotional intelligence. Using the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) used in the work, it was revealed that patients with depression differ from healthy subjects by lower scores on two scales of the method [5]. V.V. Grizodub, in her studies conducted on gymnasium students, showed that a high level of development of emotional intelligence acts as a protector for the formation of depressive tendencies [1]. The purpose of our work was to study the characteristics of emotional intelligence in pregnant women with signs of depression. The study was conducted on the basis of the department of pathology of pregnant women of the Stavropol Regional Clinical Perinatal Center. The study sample consisted of 40 women aged 23 to 33 years, in the third trimester of pregnancy (32-40 weeks), with various gynecological diagnoses (threatened miscarriage, intrauterine fetal hypoxia, breech presentation, etc.). Based on the results of the questionnaire, the “Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale” questionnaire and the Zung method for the differential diagnosis of depressive states, two groups were identified: “pregnant women with signs of depression” and “pregnant women without depression.” To study emotional intelligence, we used the “EmIn” questionnaire by D. IN. Lusina[4]. The questionnaire is based on the interpretation of emotional intelligence as the ability to understand one’s own and others’ emotions and manage them. Statistical analysis of the results of the study of emotional intelligence showed the presence of significant differences (p<0.01) in the compared groups in all subscales of the questionnaire: MP (understanding of other people’s emotions) , MU (managing other people’s emotions), VP (understanding one’s emotions), UL (managing one’s emotions), VE (control of expression). When comparing the data obtained in both groups, the following trend emerged: pregnant women understand their own emotions worse than those of others, and they manage their emotions better than the emotions of other people. This means that the ability to understand a person’s emotional state based on external manifestations of emotions (facial expressions, gestures, sound of voice) in pregnant women is better developed than the ability to understand their emotions: their recognition and identification, understanding the reasons, the ability to verbally describe, and the ability and the need to manage one’s emotions, to evoke and maintain desired emotions and to keep unwanted ones under control dominates the ability to evoke certain emotions in other people and reduce the intensity of unwanted emotions. In general, pregnant women with signs of depression typically have difficulty understanding their own emotional states and the emotional states of others. At the same time, the integral indicator of emotional intelligence in pregnant women with signs of depression is significantly lower than in the group of women in whom no signs of depression were diagnosed. Thus, an analysis of the results of an experimental psychological study of the level of development of emotional intelligence in pregnant women with signs of depression showed them significant differences from the indicators of emotional intelligence of pregnant women who were not diagnosed with depression. Therefore, it can be assumed that a sufficiently high level of development of emotional intelligence acts as a protector for the formation of signs of depression in pregnant women. Used literature: Vakhrusheva L.. 64-81.