Postpartum Depression Can Start As Soon As You're Pregnant Having a new baby is supposed to be a joyful experience -- but for many women, it comes with some significant mental health challenges.
While up to 70 percent of women report some experience of "baby blues" after giving birth, postpartum depression affects roughly 16 percent of new mothers.
But there is a wide variety in how women experience postpartum depression. New University of North Carolina research breaks down postpartum depression into three distinct subtypes.
According to the study, some women experience the onset of depressive symptoms during pregnancy, which can result in a greater risk of developing the most severe type of postpartum depression.
Dr. Samantha Meltzer-Brody of UNC's Perinatal Psychiatry Program said that it's important that doctors be aware of the various ways that postpartum depression presents itself.
"A thorough assessment of a women's history is necessary to guide appropriate clinical and treatment decisions," Meltzer-Brody said in a statement. "We now understand that postpartum depression can have onset of symptoms that may begin in pregnancy. Improved understanding of the differences in clinical presentation of postpartum depression impacts the implementation and interpretation of screening, diagnosis, treatment, and research of perinatal mood disorders. We are now working to apply our findings from this work to future biological and genetic studies of depression in women across the perinatal period."
The study analyzed data from more than 10,000 women collected during previous studies, using a common technique in psychiatry called latent class analysis. This statistical method is employed to create subgroups within a class, in this case, women with postpartum depression.
Based on the data analysis, the researchers divided up postpartum depression into class 1, class 2 and class 3, looking specifically at severity of symptoms, timing of onset, suicidal ideation and comorbid anxiety. Class 1 had the least severe symptoms, followed by class 2 and then class 3. The third tier classification was found to be heavily associated with onset of symptoms during pregnancy (rather than during the month following childbirth), as well as anxiety, poor mood, obstetric complications and suicidal ideation.
In addition to clinicians being knowledgeable about the various ways that postpartum depression presents itself, it's also important for expecting moths to be away of the risk factors for developing this condition. It's long been known that women who have suffered from depression are at a higher risk for developing postpartum depression, in addition to younger women and women who have had children previously.
Recently, research has revealed other important and previously unknown risk factors for postpartum depression. Northwestern University research linked controlling the pain of childbirth and post-delivery to a reduced risk of developing postpartum depression. The study showed that postpartum depression rates were doubled for women who didn't have an epidural. A Finnish study also found that women diagnosed with fear of childbirth are at a three times higher risk of postpartum depression.
The findings were present at a recent consortium, Postpartum Depression: Action Towards Causes and Treatment (PACT), and are published in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry.
While up to 70 percent of women report some experience of "baby blues" after giving birth, postpartum depression affects roughly 16 percent of new mothers.
But there is a wide variety in how women experience postpartum depression. New University of North Carolina research breaks down postpartum depression into three distinct subtypes.
According to the study, some women experience the onset of depressive symptoms during pregnancy, which can result in a greater risk of developing the most severe type of postpartum depression.
Dr. Samantha Meltzer-Brody of UNC's Perinatal Psychiatry Program said that it's important that doctors be aware of the various ways that postpartum depression presents itself.
"A thorough assessment of a women's history is necessary to guide appropriate clinical and treatment decisions," Meltzer-Brody said in a statement. "We now understand that postpartum depression can have onset of symptoms that may begin in pregnancy. Improved understanding of the differences in clinical presentation of postpartum depression impacts the implementation and interpretation of screening, diagnosis, treatment, and research of perinatal mood disorders. We are now working to apply our findings from this work to future biological and genetic studies of depression in women across the perinatal period."
The study analyzed data from more than 10,000 women collected during previous studies, using a common technique in psychiatry called latent class analysis. This statistical method is employed to create subgroups within a class, in this case, women with postpartum depression.
Based on the data analysis, the researchers divided up postpartum depression into class 1, class 2 and class 3, looking specifically at severity of symptoms, timing of onset, suicidal ideation and comorbid anxiety. Class 1 had the least severe symptoms, followed by class 2 and then class 3. The third tier classification was found to be heavily associated with onset of symptoms during pregnancy (rather than during the month following childbirth), as well as anxiety, poor mood, obstetric complications and suicidal ideation.
In addition to clinicians being knowledgeable about the various ways that postpartum depression presents itself, it's also important for expecting moths to be away of the risk factors for developing this condition. It's long been known that women who have suffered from depression are at a higher risk for developing postpartum depression, in addition to younger women and women who have had children previously.
Recently, research has revealed other important and previously unknown risk factors for postpartum depression. Northwestern University research linked controlling the pain of childbirth and post-delivery to a reduced risk of developing postpartum depression. The study showed that postpartum depression rates were doubled for women who didn't have an epidural. A Finnish study also found that women diagnosed with fear of childbirth are at a three times higher risk of postpartum depression.
The findings were present at a recent consortium, Postpartum Depression: Action Towards Causes and Treatment (PACT), and are published in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry.
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