Pregnant women with a history of mood disorders—either depression or bipolar disorder—are much more likely to experience an acute episode of their mood disorder during the postpartum period than during the pregnancy itself, according to a report that appeared online in AJP in Advance on July 28. The finding provides research confirmation of what clinicians have observed for many years—that the postpartum period poses considerable health risks for women with either unipolar or bipolar disorder.
The AJP study is posted at
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/reprint/appi.ajp.2011.11010148v1
. In addition, a chapter is devoted to the subject of depression care and pregnancy in the book, Treatment Resistant Depression: A Roadmap for Effective Care, published by American Psychiatric Publishing this year. For purchasing information, see
www.appi.org
.
