Depression
Anxiety Depression
Depression Symptoms
Causes of Depression
Manic Depression
Clinical Depression
Postpartum Depression
Depression Treatment
Depression Medication

Postpartum Depression


Postpartum depression should not be confused with regular "baby blues" or "maternity blues" which are a transitory and mild form of moodiness that is suffered by as many as 80% of all postpartum women. With this more run of the mill postpartum moodiness, symptoms typically include irritability, tearfulness, sleeplessness, lack of concentration and headache, and usually lasts somewhere between a few hours to several days. This more common type of postpartum sadness or moodiness is not considered to be the same ailment as a major postpartum depressive disorder.

Not all causes of postpartum depression are known, and in the search for better understanding of the known contributors, the following thirteen factors have been examined and found to be significant predictors of postpartum depression. Relative effect amount is listed in parentheses next to the contributing feature.

  • Unplanned/unwanted pregnancy (.14 to .17)
  • Low socioeconomic status (.19 to .22)
  • Single parent (.21 to .35)
  • Maternity blues (.25 to .31)
  • Infant temperament problems/colic (.33 to .34)
  • History of previous depression (.38 to.39)
  • Poor marital relationship (.38 to .39)
  • Low social support (.36 to .41)
  • Life stress (.38 to .40)
  • Prenatal anxiety (.41 to .45)
  • Childcare stress (.45 to .46)
  • Prenatal depression, i.e., during pregnancy (.44 to .46)
  • Low self esteem (.45 to.47)

These listed contributors are known to correlate with postpartum depression such that high levels of life stress or high levels of prenatal anxiety seem to indicate the likelihood of high levels of postpartum depression.

Another believed cause of postpartum depression are the hormonal changes that occur just after childbirth, though ongoing clinical studies have failed to find a specific correlation with postpartum depression and changing hormonal levels following birth. Certainly this is a rocky time in terms of emotions and hormones, but there just isn't evidence that changing hormones alone are responsible for postpartum depression.