A new study conducted at boston University and appearing in the September 3 issue of Archives of Women's Mental Health found that ideas of suicide are a common part of postpartum depression. As reported in Medical News Today:

"The participating women — most of them first-time mothers in their 30s — had a wide range of suicidal thinking, as the study examined the phenomenon of suicidality and its relationship to maternal mood, perceptions and mother-infant interactions …

Seventeen of the 32 participants (53 percent) comprised the high suicidality group and the study found that those women were experiencing more sleeping and eating problems along with greater severity in overall struggles attributable to postpartum depression …

Researchers also found that most of the women in the highly suicidal group held jobs before becoming mothers – a significant life changing experience where they left behind their working identify in a predictable and controlled environment where they felt competent, to the unpredictability of caring for a newborn. This dramatic change could have been enough to catapult them into severe postpartum depression."

The study offers ideas on how to assist these mothers in having more structured interactions with their babies. The authors suggest that the treatment of PPD should include working with the mother and child together.