According to a new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina, due to appear in the August issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, women who experience trouble breastfeeding during the first couple weeks after giving birth are more likely to suffer from postpartum depression.
Stephanie Watkins, MSPH, MSPT, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, found that women who disliked breastfeeding were "42 percent more likely to experience postpartum depression at two months compared to women who liked breastfeeding. We also found that women with severe breast pain at day one and also at two weeks postpartum were twice as likely to be depressed compared to women who did not experience pain with nursing."
Apparently there was a strong "clinical overlap", meaning moms who were struggling with breastfeeding also tended to show depressive symptoms.
Researchers used data collected as part of the Infant Feeding and Practices Study II, and assessed the postpartum depression stats of the 2,586 women in that study against the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale.
Of the women studied, 8.6 percent met the criteria for major depression a couple of months after giving birth, those who disliked breastfeeding being 1.42 times as likely to be depressed and those with severe nursing pain being 1.96 times as likely to be depressed two months in.
Early difficulties with breastfeeding should therefore act as red flag for health care providers, who are urged to screen for depression in new moms early on.
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