Helena Bradford sent me an article from the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle in New York that I guess also appeared in the Seattle Times on October 2nd. It reveals the results of a study that was published in the British medical journal The Lancet that were quite surprising to me – dads can get PPD too:
"Fathers can develop depression after the birth of a baby and its arrival home.
What’s more, says the University of Oxford report, postpartum depression (PPD) in fathers doubles the risk that the child later will have behavioral problems, especially if the child is a boy.
‘Postnatal depression is a public-health concern for mothers, fathers and babies,’ says Dr. Thomas O’Connor, the University of Rochester psychiatry professor who helped research the study …
Tested at eight weeks after birth, again about two years later and a final time when the children were 3 to 5 years old, up to 7 percent of fathers reported low moods, feelings of sadness, irritability and hopelessness.
More alarming were the long-term effects:
By preschool age, ‘We saw emotional problems, disruptive problems, fearful behaviors, over-reactive behaviors," says O’Connor. ‘We know this happens for boys and girls when the mom has PPD. But if we’re talking about a dad’s PPD, the effects were stronger on boys.’ And, it remained noticeable even after the mother’s and father’s depressions had been controlled …
Precisely why and how new fathers wind up with postpartum depression isn’t clear.
Increased expectations, decreased sleep, confusion over his role, increased responsibilities if the mother is ill or depressed, and weeks and months of general upheaval can be contributing factors, O’Connor notes, especially in men who are predisposed toward depression."
I’m not sure why I’m so surprised — I guess I figured since new fathers don’t have the same kind of major hormonal fluctuations in their bodies that new moms do, they wouldn’t experience the same kind of postpartum depression. Apparently I was wrong:
"The Oxford study’s results don’t surprise Dr. Shaila Kulkarni Misri. The Canadian reproductive psychiatrist’s research on another relatively unexplored topic — depression during pregnancy — was published in Pregnancy Blues (Delacorte, $23) last month.
‘I think this was a brilliant study, because these men could not have suffered the same hormonal and chemical imbalances that new mothers face, yet they felt the same symptoms and sadness and depression,’ says Misri.
‘This is opening society’s eyes to the possibility that men are also very vulnerable at this time. And, we hope, it gives men the signal to watch for this, and to report to their doctors or others what they’re feeling.’"
It seems we need to watch out for our partners as well as ourselves.
