Worried about depression after pregnancy?

Perhaps you know someone who has had depression after pregnancy and you are wondering if it will happen to you. 'Postnatal' or 'postpartum' depression, has recently been more talked about than it ever was in previous decades. And if the likes of Brooke Shields and Fern Brittan can get it then presumably nobody is immune!

What makes you more likely to get postnatal depression? Does it just happen out of the blue or are there reasons for it, contributing factors?

Studies that have asked women to complete mood questionnaires at certain times when they were pregnant, and again and after baby is born, have found that there’s a link between prevalence of depression symptoms during pregnancy and symptoms of depression after pregnancy. These studies revealed that nearly 50% of women who are depressed in pregnancy go on to suffer from postnatal depression, and 50% of women who are depressed in the postpartum period had depressive symptoms at some time during their pregnancy. What do those stats mean in real terms? They mean that being low in mood when you are pregnant puts you at risk of becoming depressed in the post partum after baby is born.

Other things that put you at risk of developing depression after pregnancy, even if you have been quite cheerful during your pregnancy are the following:

• Having a previous history of depression, especially previous perinatal (related to having a baby) depression, also predisposes to depression after pregnancy.

• Postpartum depression has frequently been found to be associated with having a less supportive spouse.

• Depression after pregnancy does not seem to be linked with having more financial worries or being unemployed, like depression in pregnancy is. So women who get depression after pregnancy can be from any income bracket or ‘social class’….it doesn’t seem to discriminate.

• Having ‘the blues’ very badly on day 3-5 after delivery. ‘Postpartum blues’ is a time-limited mood disturbance occurring in the early postpartum period (it isn’t called ‘depression’ because that would imply that it lasted more than 2 weeks and in fact it usually only lasts a couple of days). It is common and probably has prognostic implications. The frequency of ‘postpartum blues’ varies depending on the defining criteria used. Liberal criteria show it to happen to as many as 88% of us, while more stringent criteria yield a much lower prevalence rate of 26% (O’Hara1987). The consistent finding across studies is that mood improves immediately following the delivery of a baby but frequently deteriorates on the third or fourth day, and then improves by the eighth. Only severe postpartum blues was found to be predictive of postpartum depression.

• A smaller percentage of women develop a transient ELEVATION IN MOOD, with approximately 10% showing features of elation in the immediate days following delivery (Glover et al, 1994; Heron et al, 2005). The presence of ‘postpartum highs’ predicted depression at six weeks postpartum.

If you are worried that you might get postnatal depression, you may well find that you have one or more of the above risk factors. To help PREVENT yourself from getting depression after pregnancy look at our 'depression prevention' page. If you think that you may have postnatal depression it is important to get it treated. Look at our page on safe treatment options, most of which apply to depression after pregnancy too.

Here are some other brilliant links:

puerperal depression links - The Marce Society Women's wellbeing and mental health: Postpartum moods