A study of risk factors associated with psychotic illness after childbirth, published this week in the open-access journal PLoS Medicine, shows that first-time mothers are at the greatest risk of developing psychosis in the month following the birth of their child - even if they have never been treated in hospital for mental illness in the past.
It can be common for mothers to experience mental illness in the post-partum period (the months following childbirth): most frequently 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. Psychotic illness (a mental condition involving episodes where the individual is unable to distinguish between reality and their imagination) in the post-partum period is relatively rare. Only around one in every 1,000 women develops psychosis after delivery, but it is dangerous for mother and child, with greater risk of self-harm and suicide. The causes of post-partum psychosis are not well understood. Unnur Valdimarsdottir, of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and colleagues investigated the rates of psychosis in first-time mothers up to 90 days after the birth of their child, and a number of possible risk factors for psychosis, in Sweden between 1983 and 2000.