John Yang:
Postpartum depression is among the most common complications of childbirth. Every year, it afflicts about a half million American women and it's among the leading causes of pregnancy related death. And yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than half of the women experience it are never treated for it.
Now, the Food and Drug Administration has approved the first pill for postpartum depression. Patricia Kinser is co-director of Perinatal Mental Health Research at Virginia Commonwealth University's Institute for Women's Health.
From your perspective, how significant is this development?
Patricia Kinser, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Nursing: So, as a clinician and researcher, I constantly work with pregnant and postpartum people who share feelings of stigma and shame around their depression and anxiety symptoms.
So, I think the most significant aspect of this development is that it may normalize the concept of postpartum depression. It will make family members, friends, even healthcare providers just that much more aware of the significance of depression and anxiety symptoms and they might help support that new mom in seeking help when there are those symptoms.
So that is what is most exciting to me, in addition to, of course, the important groundbreaking work of this research, but that the field of maternal mental health is receiving the attention that is needed.
So, you know, as you mentioned, mental health conditions during and after pregnancy are among the leading causes of preventable maternal deaths in the United States at any given time. Close to 4 million American women are in the perinatal period. So whether they're pregnant or postpartum, up to one year after delivery.
And of these, at least one in five experience depression symptoms. And certainly we saw these rates rise during the pandemic. So notably, many of them have unrecognized or untreated symptoms that now with this increased recognition of the need for treatment, we're hoping that those women can receive the treatment that they need.
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