The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Committee on Obstetric Practice recently published a revised opinion on screening for perinatal depression, recommending that “clinicians screen patients at least once during the perinatal period for [...]
The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology now recommends that women be screened for depression during pregnancy. 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. 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 [...]
Various screening tools have been used to identify women with postpartum depression (PPD. The most widely used self-report tools for detection of PPD are the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) having ten and 21 items, respectively. However, the EPDS and the BDI may be too lengthy to use for quickly screening patients in obstetric, primary care, or pediatric settings.
Having a newborn child to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is stressful to parents. It would be easy to imagine that in this environment, women may be more vulnerable to postpartum depression (PPD). A recent study assessed the incidence of PPD in a total of 131 mothers with infant admitted to the NICU.
For women the postpartum period is a time of increased vulnerability to mood disorders. Recent estimates indicate that about 20% of women will suffer from significant depressive symptoms during the year after the birth of a child. Despite a significant push over the last decade to identify and effectively treat women with mood disorders during pregnancy and the postpartum period, treatment rates in this population remain unacceptably low. Furthermore, questions still remain regarding the optimal timing of screening and the best instruments to be used in this setting.
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.
The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) was designed to screen women for postnatal depression. Cox and Holden (2003) state that the EPDS was not designed to measure anxiety. However, recent emphasis on the importance of recognizing symptoms of perinatal anxiety disorders, coupled with findings in research, have led to the suggestion that the EPDS may be used as a multidimensional tool to screen for anxiety disorders in addition to depression during the perinatal period (Matthey et al, 2012).
There are many approaches to predicting which women are likely to develop postpartum depression (PPD). Most of these utilize standardized questionnaires and/or screening by health care providers. While these approaches may be effective, they tend to be costly and labor-intensive. A new study pilots the use of social media in predicting which women at risk for postpartum mood disorders.
