LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - While depression affects a similar proportion of women whether they're pregnant or not, new research indicates depression is higher during the perinatal period (the last two trimesters of pregnancy and the year after the baby is born). Now, a new study shows that when diabetes comes and goes during pregnancy, those women may be more prone to depression, even after the baby arrives.
Katy Backes Kozhimannil, M.P.A., of Harvard Medical School, says, "We don't know for sure if diabetes causes depression or depression causes diabetes in this population; what we know is that there is an association". Dr. Kozhimannil is leading the research at Harvard, analyzing the records of over 11,000 women who gave birth between 2004 and 2006, and they have found the women with diabetes during pregnancy were more than twice as likely to develop depression after the child was born.
The study appears this week in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers hope that linking these two illnesses will make it easier to identify women at risk, and get them the help they need.
All content ©Copyright 2000 - 2013 WorldNow and KCBD, a Raycom Media Station. 