Although it’s long been accepted that as many as 1 in 10 new mothers experience symptoms of postpartum depression, due to some combination of hormonal changes and changed life circumstances, until recently, few people, including physicians, gave much thought to whether new fathers were vulnerable to depression as well.
After all, dads don’t have to endure the physical changes of pregnancy, the ordeal of labor and delivery, or the challenges that sometimes accompany the initiation of breastfeeding. Unlike moms, dads typically take little time off from work and experience less of the social isolation that some believe contributes to the postpartum depression.
When my second child, a daughter, was born two years ago, I had been practicing family medicine for several years and had never diagnosed a single case of postpartum depression in a man. Not long after my daughter’s birth, I became irritable and emotionally withdrawn, unable to enjoy fatherhood the way I had after my first child was born. After a few months of worsening mood swings, my wife (who’s also a family physician), suggested that I take a look at a website devoted to depression in dads. I took the results of the screening test to my personal physician, who started me on antidepressant medication and counseling.
As it turns out, my story was hardly unusual. A meta-analysis of 43 studies published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimated that 10.4% of fathers experienced depression during their partner’s pregnancy or after the birth of their child, with 1 in 4 reporting symptoms between 3 to 6 months postpartum. (The incidence of depression in all men is considerably lower, at 4.8% per year.)
Why isn’t this condition recognized more often? As the Dr. James Paulson, lead author of the analysis, explained to a Scientific American reporter, most screening questions for depression ask about symptoms such as sadness and crying, which depressed men are less likely to experience or acknowledge to a physician. That’s unfortunate, since some studies suggest that a depressed dad can affect his child’s early behavioral development as negatively as if there was no dad in the picture at all.
I was lucky to get help when I did; within several weeks, I was feeling much better, and my family noticed the difference. And since then, I’ve tried to pay as much attention to the emotional and psychological needs of expectant dads as those of expectant moms.
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