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Postpartum Depression

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Synonyms

Perinatal depression; Peripartum depression

Definition

Depressive episode of postpartum onset.

Introduction

Postpartum depression is one major psychiatric complication associated with child birth, which adversely affect the quality of life of mother as well as significant ones related to the mother. Postpartum depression negatively affects the parenting as well as relationship with the spouse (Moore Simas et al. 2018).

Prevalence of postpartum depression among women ranges between 10% and 15% (Brummelte and Galea 2016; Couto et al. 2015). The onset of symptoms in most patients is antepartum (~50%) (American Psychiatric Association 2013). Postpartum depression becomes different from depressive episodes unrelated to childbirth by the heterogeneity in phenomenology of postpartum depression as well as diverse etiological factors attributing to it (Consortium 2015).

Etiopathogenesis of Postpartum Depression

There are multiple causes of postpartum depression. Genetic basis of...

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Correspondence to Sujita K. Kar .

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Kar, S.K., Rohatgi, K. (2019). Postpartum Depression. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_690-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_690-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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