Many studies have shown that some women are at increased risk of experiencing depression during pregnancy and the months following childbirth. The latest study on depression and pregnancy notes that women who develop diabetes either prior to or during pregnancy are even at higher risk to become depressed after delivery, putting both mother and baby at risk.

 

“Postpartum depression is a very serious illness that affects between 10 and 12 percent of mothers every year. It may have long-term negative impacts on the women it affects, but also on their children and families,” Katy Backes Kozhimannil of Harvard Medical School in Boston, lead author of the study, said.

 

For the study, Kozhimannil and colleagues analyzed data from more than 11,000 pregnant women enrolled in New Jersey’s Medicaid program from July 2004 to September 2006.

 

The study found that “pregnant women and new mothers with diabetes have nearly double the chance of experiencing postpartum depression compared with those without diabetes,” Kozhimannil said.

 

The association between diabetes and postpartum depression remained constant no matter the mother’s form of diabetes. Even women with gestational diabetes, a form of the disease that develops during pregnancy and usually disappear after delivery, were at the same risk of postpartum depression as women with type 1 or type 2 of diabetes.

 

The findings will offer doctors a better shot at identifying women at risk for postpartum depression, Kozhimannil said.

 

Symptoms of postpartum depression can occur anytime in the first year postpartum and include, but are not limited to, the following: sadness, hopelessness, low self-esteem, guilt, sleep disturbances, inability to be comforted, exhaustion, emptiness, inability to enjoy things one previously enjoyed, social withdrawal, low energy and feeling inadequate in taking care of the baby.

 

The worst part of all is that postpartum depression often goes undiagnosed, as many women don’t ask for help considering that it is just a state of mind which will go away in time. Unfortunately, in some cases, untreated postpartum depression leads to suicide or neglection of the baby, which can also be fatal.

 

The study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.