You get pregnant. Â You have a baby. Â You want to do whatever you can to care for your baby should anything happen to you. Â So you apply for life insurance. Â All of this makes total [...]
Something is happening. Â The issue of perinatal depression is spending a lot of time in the media spotlight these days. Â But rather than focusing on the risks of medications used during pregnancy (the usual headline [...]
![By Vera Kratochvil [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://womensmentalhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Mother_Kissing_Baby-320x202.jpg)
Yesterday the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) released a final recommendation statement on Screening for Depression in Adults. The Task Force recommends that clinicians screen ALL ADULTS for depression and notes that the evidence [...]
Women with bipolar disorder (BD) are at extremely high risk for postpartum psychiatric illness, specifically postpartum psychosis. Â While the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology now recommends that all women be screened for depression during [...]
The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology now recommends that women be screened for depression during pregnancy. Â Because depressive symptoms during pregnancy have been associated with worse outcomes and are a robust predictor of postpartum [...]
It is estimated that about 15% of women suffer from depression either during pregnancy or the postpartum period. Prior to the 1980s, most new mothers had never heard of postpartum depression. Â Over the last few [...]
An article published today in the US News and World Report discusses the expanded role pediatric health care providers are playing in screening new mothers for postpartum depression.  Because pediatricians have frequent contacts with the mother [...]
About 10% to 15% of women experience clinically significant depressive symptoms during pregnancy. Furthermore, women with a history of major depression appear to be at high risk for recurrent illness during pregnancy particularly in the [...]
Most studies evaluating the prevalence of perinatal depression are cross-sectional, meaning that depressive symptoms are measured at a single point in time. Less information is available regarding the trajectory of perinatal depression. In obstetric populations, it seems that there are women with briefer episodes of milder postpartum depressive symptoms, while others have more persistent and debilitating depressive symptoms after childbirth. Other women experience depression during pregnancy. Several studies suggest that there is considerable heterogeneity among women who experience depressive symptoms during pregnancy and the postpartum period.
While postpartum depression (PPD) is typically considered to be a woman’s illness, a number of studies have suggested that, although men do not experience any of the dramatic physiologic or hormonal changes that go along with pregnancy, new fathers may also suffer from PPD. Several recent studies yield information on how to better identify new fathers at risk for depression.
