The objective of the study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Edinburg Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) to detect depression during pregnancy in Chile. The EPDS was applied to a sample of 111 pregnant women, who were attending an antenatal appointment in primary care centers. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-I) was used to assess the convergent validity, and the Depressive Episode module of the MINI was used to identify cases. The factor analysis showed that there was a good fit, with a factor model that explains 57.6 % of the total variance. There was a high degree of internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.914) and good convergent validity with the BDI-I (rho = 0.850, p < 0.001). The EPDS was capable of differentiating cases of depression from non-cases. The best cutoff point was between 12 and 13, corresponding to an overall accuracy of 87.4 %. The questionnaire has good psychometric properties and can be useful for detecting cases of depression during pregnancy.