My SD Moms Help needed for largest ever postpartum depression study
(CNN)If you have ever suffered from postpartum depression or anxiety or know somebody who has, you no doubt have wondered what causes the destructive disorders that impact as many as one in five women. Why do some women experience them when others don’t? Could there be a way to predict who might suffer from them?
Answers to those vexing questions could come following the launch Monday of the largest ever study of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, led by researchers at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and the consortium Postpartum Depression: Action Towards Causes and Treatment. The international study is being conducted via one of the most popular tools in society today, the iPhone.
“We believe it’s a real game changer for our ability to understand the biologic causes of postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis and to use state of art science to develop innovative treatments, and that’s the overall goal,” said Dr. Samantha Meltzer-Brody, director of the perinatal psychiatry program at the UNC Center for Women’s Mood Disorders. “Our overall goal is to prevent anyone else from suffering with these devastating disorders, and we need to know more about the underlying biology, the genetic risk.”
