One in 7 pregnant women depressed

OAKLAND, Calif., Sept. 28 (UPI) -- More than one in seven U.S. women are depressed at some time during the nine months before becoming pregnant, during pregnancy or after childbirth.

The study, published in the October issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry, also found that more than half of the women who experienced postpartum depression had been depressed before becoming pregnant or during pregnancy.

"These findings show we need to pay more attention to depression before pregnancy," study co-author Dr. Evelyn Whitlock, senior investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, said in a statement.

"Doctors and the public tend to focus more on postpartum depression because of the huge gap between a new mother's joyful expectations and the crushing reality of depression."

Investigators at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research profiled 4,398 women who gave birth from 1998 to 2001 and found 8.7 percent were identified as depressed in the nine months before pregnancy, 6.9 percent during pregnancy and 10.4 percent in the nine months following childbirth.