Autoimmune Diseases and Perinatal Depression

When scientists in Sweden analyzed data from all women who gave birth there between 2001 and 2013, they found that those with autoimmune diseases were 30% more likely to experience perinatal depression. Read the full article here.

The Immune System and Postpartum Depression

It's been a long time since I posted anything here. I miss writing and need to come up with a plan for doing it more regularly. I've been traveling (one recent stop was Wien IX, Bergasse 19, which was Freud's home and office in Vienna, Austria for 47 years before he fled to London to escape the Nazi persecution), taking some intensive trainings (PACT and ACT), and of course, seeing clients and being a caregiver to my son. However, I would be remiss to not share this article from the Washington Post on the connection between PPD and the immune system. Key points:

"Although postpartum depression has commonly been linked to the hormonal fluctuations of pregnancy, scientists say that the immune system may play a much larger role than previously known."

"Increasingly, scientists are finding that shifting hormones are not the whole picture in PPD. The immune system also fluctuates in its activity during pregnancy."

“Immune changes are one of the most important changes that have to occur in order to essentially, you know, tolerate a visitor in your body for nine months,” said Kathryn Lenz, an associate professor of psychology at Ohio State University.

Scientists already know that with prolonged inflammation and immune activity, inflammatory cytokines from the body can pass into the brain, triggering neuroinflammation and ultimately affecting brain areas involved in depression.

In another study, scientists found that certain immune cells that are suppressed during pregnancy do not rebound properly after childbirth in women who developed PPD.

“If you look at the ways their immune systems change, it’s not so simple as saying there’s more or less inflammation,” said Lauren Osborne, vice chair of clinical research in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine and the study’s lead author. “It’s that there’s this dysregulation all over.”

Disruption of sleep and elevated stress — which are common in mothers nurturing a newborn — also are known to impact the immune system and increase inflammation. The link between stress and the immune system may also help explain why parents who do not directly experience pregnancy and childbirth can develop PPD. About 1 in 10 fathers develop PPD, as do some parents who adopt.

Experts and patients say that the emerging biological understanding of pregnancy-related depression has already had an impact in destigmatizing pregnancy-related depression. “Saying that it’s something biological — I think people are relieved by that and they feel less at fault,” Osborne said.