Hi Guys, since i just happen to work in a fetal physiology lab :-) , i
thought i'd do some quick research for ya! (im no physiologist mind you,
i'm just the resident molecular biology person)
I did a bit of a search on Medline (an internet database containing
references and abstracts of just about every scientific paper published
in biomedicine since 1966) and came up with a few numbers relating to
postnatal depression. see http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/gw/Cmd although
like any database its potentially a bit scary for the unititiated :-)
There are 1283 journal citations related to postnatal or postpartum
depression by the way ... in my quick and dirty review method of the
topic (i looked at the titles of the 100 most recent citations, and then
looked at the abstracts of about about a dozen that seemed most
relevant. I
also tried finding a few country specific studies, with the intention of
comparing the incidence of PND from country to country, but had
questionable success)
Anyway, i found the following:
The incidence of PND is pretty similar from study to study (about 17 -
20 %) there were only 2 exceptions - a study in Malaysia (3.9%) and
another looking at poor urban areas of South Africa (34.5%)
The majority of the studies i found were from 'westernised' societies -
Europe and UK, and Australia seemed to predominate my small sampling,
and i had to search specifically for a US one. (the US had a
'reputation' amongst the people in my lab for being a bit slow on the
uptake in our areas of research, so maybe the same thing has happened
here. Mind you, they catch up very quickly!)
i couldnt find any studies looking at PND in India (there may be some -
i just didnt find any) However one study compared two very different
cultures - the UK and Taiwan - and found the incidence of PND was very
similar between the two groups of women they studied. The authors went
on to suggest that therefore biological factors were possibly involved
in PND
(however, i only read the abstract, so i may have missed something
vital). One very large Australian study (n=1000+) looked at PND and
early (72 hours) or delayed (8-10 days) release from hospital, and
also found no significant differences between the two groups.
Most of the abstracts i found mentioned the following as possible causes
of PND: an existing predisposition to anxiety and depression seems to be
the 'number one' factor (about 10% of the general population suffer
from a mood disorder of some sort, so its not surprising that a similar
number of new mothers become depressed (although the rate of depression
is definately significantly higher in new mothers)). the other major
factors appeared to be the quality of relationship of the mother and her
partner and also whether or not the mother was actually wanting the
child.
Fluctuating hormone levels in the mother are another suspect, and there
seems to be some sort of clinical trial underway investigating this.
anyway, I gotta go now, and i'll try and find out more tomorrow if you
really
want!
Cheers, Mark.
