Many women report cognitive difficulties -- forgetfulness, distractibility, feeling foggy ---during the transition to menopause. While much attention has been devoted to the treatment of vasomotor symptoms, such as hot flashes or night sweats, less [...]
Maternal psychiatric illness can profoundly affect how a mother interacts with her child and is a risk factor for impaired mother-infant bonding, which may include a spectrum of difficulties: decreased maternal affective involvement, increased irritability, [...]
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT is a type of psychotherapy that has been shown to be effective for the treatment of depression, anxiety, and sleep problems. Recently, several randomized controlled trials have demonstrated that CBT is effective for managing vasomotor symptoms in menopausal women.
Here's a new way to look at hot flashes. How much do they cost our society in terms of additional health care and lost productivity?
All women are at risk for postpartum depression (PPD), and there is growing evidence to suggest that poor sleep during pregnancy and the postpartum period may be a risk factor for the development of depression. [...]
The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) was modified by adding lifetime PND screening questions, assessing worst episode, and symptom timing of onset, in order to assess the lifetime prevalence of perinatal depression. Subjects from the [...]
Some, but not all, studies have demonstrated an increased risk of miscarriage among women who take antidepressants. However, it has been difficult to determine whether this increased risk was related to exposure to the medication [...]
A recent report suggests that epidural labor analgesia is associated with a decreased risk of postpartum depression (PPD). This prospective study included 214 pregnant women from Beijing, China who were preparing for a vaginal delivery. Epidural [...]
While we are advocating universal screening for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, it is unclear if we have the ability to provide mental health services to this population in need. One significant obstacle to treatment [...]
Bupropion is commonly used to treat depression, and is also prescribed to support smoking cessation. Early data on bupropion-exposure during pregnancy raised concern for a possible increase in risk of malformations of the heart and large blood vessels in bupropion-exposed infants. Subsequent data from bupropion pregnancy registries has been reassuring, however, and do not demonstrate an overall increase in risk of cardiac defects following first trimester bupropion exposure. Although the overall risk of cardiac defects was not increased, the distribution of specific defects in these registries was unexpected in some ways. For example, the GlaxoSmithKline Bupropion Pregnancy Registry included two cases of coarctation of the aorta out of the 675 bupropion-exposed infants, compared to the rate of 6 cases per 10,000 births in the general population.
