quick clicks

pregnancy today articles

pregnancy today q&a

message boards

research baby names

prepare a birth plan

content channels

ip channel rss feeds

read birth stories

read parenting stories

recommended books

e-newsletters

safety recalls

ip diaries

ip store

mom of the month

dad of the month

editor's letter

letters to the editor

Daddy Baby Blues?

Understanding How Postpartum Depression Affects New Dads

By Gina Roberts-Grey

British researchers headed by Dr. Paul Ramchandani, a psychiatrist at the University of Oxford, recently released a report that paternal PPD can affect a child's early behavior. In the report published in The Lancet medical journal, baby boys were especially affected by depressed dads and have twice as many behavioral problems in their early years as baby girls or children whose fathers did not experience PPD. "Our findings indicate that paternal depression has a specific and persisting detrimental effect on their children's early behavioral and emotional development," Dr. Ramchandani noted in his findings.

Dr. Ramchandani and his team studied the behavior and mental health of 12,800 couples in the first few weeks after the birth of their child and shortly before the children's second birthday. They assessed the children's emotional development and behavior when they were 3 years old based on questionnaires completed by the children's mothers. "The relationship between boys' behavioral development and depression in their fathers is striking," Ramchandani reported. "It may be that boys are specifically sensitive to the effects of parenting by fathers, perhaps because of different involvement by fathers with their sons."

Want to see more?

• Postpartum Depression: When having a baby gives you more than the blues
• Preparing for Postpartum Life: The Joys and Challenges of Life After Delivery
• Manopause?: Looking Into Andropause and the Low T Factor
• Talk about it!