(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- It is well known that new mothers sometimes suffer prenatal and postpartum depression, with negative personal, family, and child developmental impact, but depression among new fathers has received little attention. Researchers have found that about 10 percent of fathers experience prenatal or postpartum depression, with rates being highest in the 3- to 6-month postpartum period.

Dr. Paulson and co-author Sharnail D. Bazemore, M.S., of the East­ern Virginia Medical School, conducted a meta-analysis to determine rates of paternal prenatal and postpartum depression and its association with maternal depression. The authors included studies that documented depression in fathers between the first trimester and the first postpartum year, and identified 43 studies involving 28,004 participants for inclusion in the analysis.

The researchers found that the estimated rate of paternal depression was 10.4 percent. There was considerable variability between different time periods, with the 3- to 6-month postpartum period showing the highest rate (25.6 percent) and the first 3 postpartum months showing the lowest rate (7.7 percent). New dads in the U.S. seemed to have a more difficult time, 14.1 percent of them versus 8.2 percent internationally. And, finally, there was a moderate correlation between depression in fathers and mothers.

"There are many implications of these findings. The observation that expecting and new fathers dispropor­tionately experience depression sug­gests that more efforts should be made to improve screening and refer­ral, particularly in light of the mount­ing evidence that early paternal depression may have substantial emo­tional, behavioral, and developmental effects on children,” the authors were quoted as saying. “The correla­tion between paternal and maternal depression also suggests a screening rubric—depression in one parent should prompt clinical attention to the other. Likewise, prevention and intervention efforts for depression in parents might be focused on the couple and family rather than the individual."

The authors concluded, "Future research in this area should focus on parents together to examine the onset and joint course of depres­sion in new parents. This may in­crease our capacity for early identification of parental depression, add leverage for prevention and treat­ment, and increase the understanding of how parental depression conveys risk to infants and young children."