In the study, which appears in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, Meinlschmidt and his colleagues analyzed blood samples from 73 healthy pregnant women. Women with a recent history of depression were excluded, although 16 did report experiencing some depression at some point more than two years before the start of the study.
Within two weeks of giving birth, the women answered a questionnaire designed to screen for depression symptoms. The women whose responses indicated a risk for postpartum depression had substantially lower oxytocin levels than the women who showed no signs of depression.
Dr. Manevitz says the findings would have been stronger had the researchers followed the women longer and used the official diagnostic criteria for postpartum depression, a persistent low mood that interferes with your ability to function for at least two weeks. (Any depression within the first year after birth is considered postpartum.)
“The mothers could have postpartum blues,” he explains. That condition, also known as the “baby blues,” is more common than full-blown postpartum depression and is often a short-lived response to lack of sleep, discomfort following labor, and other stresses.
