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Using a Murine Model of Psychosocial Stress in Pregnancy as a Translationally Relevant Paradigm for Psychiatric Disorders in Mothers and Infants
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The course of postpartum psychiatric disorders in women and their partners

P Zelkowitz1, T H Milet

  • 1Department of Psychiatry, Sir Mortimer B. Davis-Jewish General Hospital and McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
|October 3, 2001
PubMed

This study examined the course of postpartum psychiatric disorders in a community sample of mothers and their partners to determine whether sociodemographic variables, life stress, and psychiatric history were related to persistence of mental health problems. At 6 months postpartum, 48 index couples where the wife had a psychiatric disorder at 2 months postpartum and 50 control couples with no such diagnosis underwent diagnostic interviews and completed questionnaires on psychological symptoms, life stress, and treatment history. The results indicate that at follow-up, 54% of the index mothers still had a psychiatric diagnosis, as did 60% of their partners who had had a psychiatric diagnosis at 2 months postpartum. Socioeconomic status, country of origin, and life stress were related to persistence, as were diagnosis and timing of onset of the disorder. About a third of the parents were referred for treatment. It is concluded that for many families, postpartum psychiatric disorders are not a transient phenomenon.

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