The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which is part of the US Department of Health & Human Services, has posted a few pieces of research on postpartum depression from the last few years, including this one:
"About 13 percent of women suffer from the anxiety, hopelessness, desolation, and fatigue of postpartum depression (PPD) for the first 3 to 12 months of their children's lives. Yet, primary care physicians fail to recognize more than half of PPD cases, despite the availability of depression screening tools that can expedite diagnosis and treatment. Some women and clinicians may confuse PPD with "baby blues," which occur in more than 80 percent of mothers. However, baby blues begin within hours or days of delivery, are characterized by major mood swings rather than consistent depressive symptoms, and typically disappear 2 to 4 weeks postpartum.
While baby blues and minor depressive symptoms often clear spontaneously, PPD is a persistent form of major depression that develops within the first 2 to 6 months postpartum. Untreated PPD can devastate the mother (who loses her energy or joy in parenting), her child (who often has delayed psychological and cognitive development), and her family (with twice the risk of divorce within 2 years postpartum). In extreme cases, PPD can result in suicide and infanticide. Timely diagnosis and treatment of PPD can interrupt these cycles before damage to mother, child, and family become irreparable, explains Barbara P. Yawn, M.D., M.Sc., of the Olmsted Medical Center and University of Minnesota."
This would be one argument for why screening for postpartum depression is necessary. If the docs don't notice you have PPD and don't ask, and you're afraid to bring it up, that's a problem.
