One in three women will experience significant depressive symptoms in the first five years after giving birth. But new research has found if mothers regularly take time for themselves in the first six months after giving birth, they’re less likely to get postnatal depression.
In the early months after giving birth, women’s physical health, intimate relationships, and mental health are strained. Many new mothers experience mental health problems, and they do not improve over time.
In fact, depression is commonly episodic rather than acute (meaning that it is most likely to come and go), and the prevalence of depression increases over the first four years after giving birth.
Maternal depression has clear and obvious impacts on women, children, and families. Despite the importance of women’s mental health after birth, there has been very limited evidence of effective ways to prevent maternal depression and promote mental well-being at this time.
Making Time
We studied more than 1,500 women and discovered a strong and robust association between “taking time for themselves, when someone else looks after the baby” at six months after birth and the prevalence of depression symptoms. The prevalence of depression symptoms steadily decreased as the frequency of time for self increased.
