Post-partum depression is often associated with women. The condition, which typically occurs after childbirth and may last up to a year, is attributed to fatigue as well as the hormonal and psychological changes that women experience after giving birth.
It appears, though, that the psychological and emotional challenges of becoming a parent do not only affect women as men are apparently also prone to suffering from depression. A new study suggests that men, young fathers in particular, are also vulnerable to developing depressive symptoms during the first few years of parenthood.
In the study published in the journal Pediatrics on April 14, researchers followed more than 10,000 young men starting in 1994, 33 percent of whom were fathers by 2004 to 2005 at the age of 24 to 32 years old. The researchers analyzed the depression rate of the fathers with regard to their age when they entered fatherhood, the age of their children and whether or not they live with their children.
The researchers found that the fathers who live with their children exhibited symptoms of depression in the early years of fatherhood when the children have just been born until they were five years old. The study also showed that fathers who didn't live with their children had higher rates of depression than men who had no children, but did not experience the same increase in depressive symptoms during the early years of fatherhood.
The researchers have likewise observed that the depression symptoms in the fathers who lived with their children jumped by about 68 percent during the early years of fatherhood, but these symptoms subside as the children get older, suggesting that men, too, experience depression after the birth of their child.
"In our longitudinal, population-based study, resident fathers show increasing depressive symptom scores during children's key attachment years of 0-5. Identifying at-risk fathers based on social factors and designing effective interventions may ultimately improve health outcomes for the entire family," the researchers concluded.
Study researcher Craig Garfield, an associate professor in pediatrics and medical social sciences at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, said that the result of their study is not statistically significant because of the limited sample size. Still, he said that the findings warrant additional research.
Garfield also said that it is crucial to identify depressive symptoms in parents as these can have a negative effect on kids, particularly during the child's first years. Earlier research, for instance, suggest that depressed fathers are likely to neglect their kids and use corporal punishment.
