Swedish researchers have revealed that women who have their first baby after age 35 are more likely to develop a mental illness after the birth.
The researchers say older first time mothers have double the risk of suffering from postpartum psychosis, a mental illness involving episodes where the individual is unable to distinguish between reality and their imagination, which requires the use of anti-psychotic drugs.
The researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm carried out a study of risk factors associated with psychotic illness after childbirth and they say the risk of developing psychosis during the first 90 days after childbirth increases with age and could endanger the newborn child.
The Swedish study which was based on data gathered from all the nearly 750,000 first-time mothers who gave birth in Sweden between 1983 and 2000, shows that when women over 35 gave birth for the first time they were 2.4 times more likely to develop postpartum psychosis than those younger than 19.
The researchers say as many as 80% of new mothers experience some kind of mental disturbance or mild depression, most often these might involve short-lived cases of the "baby blues" in the days after birth, and mild to moderate postnatal depression in the weeks and months that follow, but only about one in 1,000 women suffer from actual psychosis in the first months after giving birth.
Postpartum psychosis is a serious mental disorder, involving delusions, hallucinations, severe eating or sleeping disturbances, suicidal tendencies and can be dangerous for mother and child as there is greater risk of self-harm and suicide and the safety of the newborn baby can be threatened.