They might relish becoming parents, but they can also be unprepared for the infant in their lives. They're sleep-deprived, confused and irritable. They're the fathers.
Discussions of the connection between mental health and childbirth have long focused on women, but a sizeable portion of men experience prenatal and postpartum depression too, according to research released Tuesday.
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The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., found that 10.4% of men experienced serious depression at some point between his partner's first trimester and one year after childbirth, more than double the depression rate for men in general. American men were more likely to experience prenatal or postpartum depression compared with men in other countries, 14.1% in the U.S. compared with 8.2% internationally.
"It's viewed as a disorder of motherhood. It's not viewed by health professionals and the public as a problem in fathers," said James F. Paulson, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk.
But depression in either parent can affect both the couple's relationship and the child's development, Paulson said, adding that further study is needed.
"There have been a few very good studies documenting negative child outcomes when fathers are depressed," he said. "That alone makes this a significant public health concern and something we need to pay more attention to."
Paulson analyzed the findings of 43 studies involving 28,004 participants. The men were from the United States, China, Ireland, Britain, Australia and several other developed nations.
The most vulnerable period for depression in men was three to six months postpartum, he found, with a quarter of the men who experienced depression afflicted during this time period.
An estimated 14% to 23% of women experience depression during pregnancy and 5% to 25% have postpartum depression, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Paternal depression has not been well documented historically, and many of the studies in the meta-analysis were conducted only in the last five to 10 years, Paulson said. The contemporary father may be more vulnerable to this malady than previous generations of fathers because of the increasing number of women in the workplace and the corresponding expectations that he shoulder more responsibilities at home.passion
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