New Study Shows How New Father’s Prior Mental Health Can Predict Postpartum Depression

The transition to parenthood can be a beautiful time in a person’s life, but it can also be incredibly stressful. Taking care of a newborn is no joke! Thankfully, we’ve come a long way in recognizing that the postpartum period can be more complicated than simply getting to hang out with your tiny, new bundle of joy.

Postpartum depression can be debilitating for mothers, and we know that a dip in mental health can come for new dads, too. One in 10 men screen positive for depression in the post-natal period, making it far from uncommon.

Paternal mental health plays a major role in the mental health of the entire family, so Researchers from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization wanted to find out whether expecting fathers’ mental health history could help predict whether they would experience post-natal depression.

“Becoming a father for the first time is associated with psychosocial and interpersonal stressors,” the researchers wrote. “Evidence regarding men's mental ill-health or paternal depression during this period is relatively robust, but good mental health or wellbeing is largely untested in this context.”

The study, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, assessed whether previous instances of poor mental health could predict depression in the post-natal stage, and as their children grow out of the (stressful, sleep-deprived) infant stage. It also looked into whether men’s prior wellbeing, or positive mental health, would act as a protective measure against depression during these time periods.

The researchers analyzed data from men who took part in a long term study on men’s health, called The Ten To Men study. They compared the pre-conception and post-natal mental health of 350 men, and the post-natal and post-infancy mental health of 427 men.

Based on these samples, the researchers found that men’s prior depressive symptoms were the best predictor of post-natal depression, and that pre-conception wellbeing predicted lower rates of post-natal depression. Similarly, men’s depressive symptoms in the post-natal period were predictive of depressive symptoms in the infancy phase. However, reported levels of wellbeing in the post-natal period didn’t correlate with an outcome during infancy, positive or negative.

The study was not without limitations. The researchers noted that it did not take into account other conditions in the fathers’ lives that could contribute to depression, such as conception difficulties or the mental health of the mother.

However, the researchers did recommend that screening for mental health history and current symptoms, to help prevent depression in new fathers. Becoming a dad can be stressful and even a little scary, but this research can help men better prepare for this new phase of their lives.