RebelDad

One in 10 New Dads Suffers Depression, JAMA Says

Posted on 18. May, 2010 by Brian Reid in pregnancy and childbirth, research

The big news in fatherhood today is a new report in the Journal of the American Medical Association that estimates that about one in 10 new fathers suffers from depression in the first year after the birth of a child. For comparison’s sake, about 4.8 percent of men are depressed during a given year. So guys are at double the risk of depression in the postpartum period. That’s a big deal.

There are some other interesting nuggets in the findings. The risk appears to peak for guys between 3 and 6 months after birth, with the first 12 weeks being the lowest risk period of the first year. (This, in a country in which a 12-week maternity leave is the standard. Hmmmmm.) And U.S. dads appear to be more likely to suffer postpartum depression than dads in other countries.

The research that led to the 10 percent number (more specifically, 10.4 percent) was from a mashup of 43 smaller studies that tracked more than 28,000 guys, led by James F. Paulson of the East­ern Virginia Medical School. These kind of studies, known as meta-analyses, aren’t considered gold standard research, but they generally do a decent job of identifying patterns that might not emerge in smaller studies and suggesting future avenues of research. Even in this case, the researchers went out of their way to warn that the lousy data “suggests cautious interpretation.”

So while the 10 percent number shouldn’t be set in stone, it should serve as a giant kick in the ass to the research community that the issue of depression in new dads deserves from serious scrutiny, and the sooner the better. (This is taking nothing away from the incredibly serious issue of postpartum depression in moms, which could also stand a more thorough analysis.) Are the biological factors driving this? After all, we know that hormones in men (including testosterone) go nutty around childbirth. What are the social factors that are involved? What’s protective?

There are lots of questions still unanswered … the JAMA review couldn’t even take a stab at whether family size or age of the father had any impact on risk, simply because high-quality data doesn’t exist.

I’ll update this post with some of the better reporting on the study to help fill in holes. And — of course — I’m curious to hear anecdotes from any of you that may have experiences this firsthand.

UPDATE #1: The early coverage has emphasized a couple of pieces of information worth sharing. MedPageToday noted that depression in one parent is a modest risk factor for depression in the other parent. Bloomberg News, in additional to talking about the topline findings, also mentioned that Paulson just got half a million dollars to continue his study of depression in new parents. There has also been coverage on Good Morning America, but the journalism was shoddy: they did their spot *before* the research came out and so didn’t talk about the findings specifically. It’s a worthwhile human interest story, though.

UPDATE #2: The LA Times says we should get extra shut-eye, quoting Will Courtenay, a psychotherapist in Berkeley not involved with the research: “Sleep deprivation likely plays one of the biggest roles for men and women.” US News & World Report takes a news-you-can-use approach, telling dads what they can do. The big tip: seek help.

HuffPo runs a first-person account from Joel Schwartzberg, who puts it eloquently: “I hope this can be a starting point for discussion of the unique pressures sudden fathers feel. At the end of the day — and days are never longer than when you’re a new parent — “manning up” should include expressing feelings of vulnerability, depression, and personal need, not just burying them. In my experience, that’s the only hope of truly overcoming.”

USA Today has a provocative headline, suggesting that the rate of postpartum depression is as high in men as it is in women. I’m going to have to check the study, but I think that’s an apples-to-oranges comparison.

UPDATE #3: If you think that guys are making progressing shattering ’50s-era stereotypes, I should let you know that there are miles to go before we sleep: just read the throwback comments to the WSJ coverage of this topic.