It is common to hear about new moms experiencing postpartum depression, but how about dads? Are new fathers experiencing the blues, too?
In a paper published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association in May 2010 James Paulson and Sharnail Bazemore of the Eastern Virginia Medical School analyzed data collected on 28,004 men who participated in 43 studies documenting depression in fathers.
Here are the results:
- About 10 percent of fathers experience depression between the first trimester of their wife's pregnancy and the first year after the birth, compared with only about 4.8 percent of men in the general population.
- Men were most likely to become depressed between three to six months after the baby's birth.
- Men in the U.S. were more likely than men in other countries to experience depression. The rate was 14.1 percent in the United States, compared with 8.2 percent internationally.
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