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Post-natal depression can be prevented, says study
POST-NATAL depression can be effectively treated and even prevented, researchers from Yorkshire claim today.
A study led by experts from Huddersfield University says health visitors can be trained to identify women with the condition and offer effective psychological treatment.
About 13 per cent of women experience depression in the year following the birth of their child. But the condition is frequently undetected and untreated often because of poor recognition of symptoms, lack of awareness of treatment or fear of stigma attached to the illness.
Antidepressant drugs have been shown to be effective, but many women are reluctant to take them, especially when breastfeeding. Psychological counselling offers an alternative, but its effectiveness has until now remained unclear.
In one of the largest studies of postnatal depression, a team led by Jane Morrell, of Huddersfield University's School of Human Health Sciences, along with colleagues from Sheffield University, looked at if the interventions were effective in treating the condition's symptoms.
More than 4,000 mothers from 101 general practices in South Yorkshire and the East Midlands took part. Women received two types of psychological therapies or standard care from health visitors, according to the study published in the British Medical Journal.
Health visitors providing psychological treatments were trained to identify depressive symptoms and deliver help for an hour per week for up to eight weeks. Depressive symptoms were rated and women were followed up for 18 months.
At both six months and 12 months, the mothers who received care from the specially-trained health visitors showed significantly greater reductions in depressive symptoms than those who received standard health visitor care.
Mothers given help with depressive symptoms at six weeks were 40 per cent less likely to have them at six months than those receiving standard care.
The researchers found no benefit of one psychological technique over the other.
In a second study, researchers from Canada examined the effectiveness of giving telephone support to high-risk women which was provided by other volunteer mothers.
They found women had half the risk of developing post-natal depression at 12 weeks after birth than those who were not given help.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
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