Younger Fathers at Risk for Postpartum Depression

A rhyme from one of Dr. Seuss’ kids’ books discusses “SAD DAD BAD HAD Dad is sad. Very, very sad. He had a bad day. What a day Dad had!” As it turns out, the Dr. was on to something. For a small but growing literature focuses on postpartum depressionâ€"in men.

And indeed quite a few fathers of young children are sad (and anxious and depressed and distressed).

Photo: (AP)

Younger fathersâ€"men younger than 30 years oldâ€"have higher rates of distress, as do the most socioeconomically disadvantaged.

A recent touchstone in this subject is the first nationally representative study conducted among Australian men, a paper in press in “Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology” by Rebecca Giallo and colleagues. They tallied scores on a commonly-used psychological distress scaleâ€"the Kessler 6â€"among about 3500 fathers of young children.

What they found was that 9 percent of fathers of young children reported symptomatic or clinically-relevant distress. That rate is 1.4 times as likely as Australian men generally, indicating that postpartum men take a psychological hit.

These latter patterns may be picking up a few things. Younger and socioeconomically disadvantaged men may have fewer resources to draw on, amplifying the challenges of parenting a young child.

How representative are these new Australian findings? A 2010 meta-analysis, published by James Paulson and Sharnail Bazemore in the “Journal of the American Medical Association,” covered 43 studies on over 28,000 participants.

The rates were slightly higher 3-6 months postpartum. In this meta-analysis, paternal postpartum depression was correlated (r = 0.31) with maternal postpartum depression. To date, perhaps the strongest predictor of postpartum depression is that of a father’s partner. After all, they share a host of factorsâ€"which might include economic challengesâ€"and men often take emotional cues from a partner.

Her depression may influence his. (As we’ll note in other blogs, all kinds of paternal factors hinge on a relationship with the child’s mother, making depression just one of many such cases.)

Importantly, it is unclear whether men experience elevated postpartum depression in broader cross-cultural perspectives. Almost all studies of postpartum depression are restricted to Western samples.

(source: Fatherhood: Evolution and Human Paternal Behavior. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.)

 Younger Fathers at Risk for Postpartum Depression.