New Dads, Too, Can Suffer Depression

Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2010-05-19 02:19

Article here. This has been reported a couple times already here on MANN (search on "postpartum" in our search box) but each time, new information is revealed. Good to see interest in it continues. How men are affected when a new baby comes into their lives is important. After all, having babies ain't all about mommy, is it? Excerpt:

'It's not just new moms who get postpartum depression. More than one in 10 fathers become depressed after the birth of their child, too, according to a new study that researchers said underscores the need for more awareness of men's depression.

Postpartum depression in mothers has been well-recognized, but much less attention has been focused on how new fathers fare. That's because women are usually the primary care givers and postpartum depression was considered a condition likely linked to hormonal changes in pregnancy. Experts say treating depression, whether it's in the mother or father, is important because it raises the risk for long-term behavioral and psychiatric problems in the child.

Researchers from the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk sought to get an accurate estimate for what percentage of men experience depression in the year after their child was born, using commonly accepted depression measures. They conducted a statistical review of 43 previously published studies involving 28,000 male and female adults.

Some 10.4% of fathers experience depression during the postpartum period, the analysis showed. In the general population, 4.8% of men are believed depressed at any given point in time, according to government data.'

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Comments

In both cases, it's because the parents realize just WTF they have gotten themselves into: crying baby all night, discipline problems, Terrible-Twos missing car keys, hissy fits, I-want-money-for-college, the whole bloody nine yards. That's why they get depressed. The thought of it is enough to get you to go reaching for the nearest single-shooter. :)

OK, this is a serious issue. I am not meaning to make light of it. But it may well be one of those if-you-don't-laugh-you'll-cry things because, though it shouldn't be viewed as a bad or burdensome thing to happen to people, the truth is, having one or more kids is a lot of work, a permanent change to one's lifestyle and priorities, a big responsibility (for those paying attention and who are qualified to be "real parents"), and a whole lot of unknowns always floating around out there. So it should come as no wonder some new parents get seriously depressed after they have kids.

In this arena, I feel that what's gone missing in our society is the fundamental realization that children not only need both parents, they also need a lot of good, loving adults around them to help contribute to their process of becoming integrated members of their society, thus generally also themselves turning out to be happier people. On top of feminism, the loss of the extended family and more generally of tribal/village living in western societies has been a real big kabash on the whole reproduction thing and undoubtedly contributes a lot to the low birth-rate among industrialized societies. While this low birth-rate could be useful in that it may, if we are lucky, keep the planet from collapsing under the weight of all us humans by the year 2500 (or sooner), in terms of outcomes for individual people, well, it's a real psycho-social ass-reaming that leads some to spend way too much time reading 20th-century existential crap.

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Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2010-05-19 02:37