Study: Young Dads At Risk For Postpartum Depression

According to a new study in the journal Pediatrics and featured in Time, young men who become fathers around age 25 showed increased signs of postpartum depression within the first five years of being dads if they live at the same home as their children.

The study tracked men’s depression symptoms in over ten thousand young men for about 20 years who entered fatherhood around age 25, and found that nearly 70 percent of these men showed increased symptoms of depression over their first five years of being dads if they lived in the same home as their children.

The study also suggested that while fathers who did not share a home with their children did not experience the same high increase in depressive symptoms in early fatherhood, those men who did live with their children had lower depression symptoms before they became dads and experienced a spike in symptoms when their child was born and through the first few years.

Fox News reported that previous research conducted on depression in men states that depressed dads are more likely to neglect their kids— making it critical to identify depression symptoms in young fathers early, the researchers said.

“Parental depression has a detrimental effect on kids, especially during those first key years of parent-infant attachment,” said lead study author Dr. Craig Garfield, an associate professor in pediatrics and medical social sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, in a statement. “We need to do a better job of helping young dads transition through that time period.”

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