We know that like mothers, it is possible that parents also have postpartum depression, and even recent studies have shown that this disease has increased so much in them, that it is almost as frequent as in mothers.
Now, a new study has found that when the father suffers from postpartum depression, the risk of his daughters also suffering from it in the future increases. We share the results of this investigation.
Published in the magazine JAMA Psychiatry, the study He analyzed the effect that his father had postpartum depression on his children's mental health, confirming that the mental health of fathers and mothers affects the children.
However, according to the study and in the case of parents who had postpartum depression, this would only influence the daughters and not the sons, increasing the possibility that they would suffer in the future.
They reached this conclusion after analyzing more than 3,000 families in Bristol, United Kingdom. According to the study, at 18 years of age, adolescents whose parents suffered depression after they were born had a higher risk that they also suffered from depression.
In Babies and more More attention to postpartum depression: could affect mothers and their children's behavior for up to 11 yearsAccording to the study, it is not known exactly the reason why this happens, but it is thought that the fact that parents have postpartum depression also increases postpartum depression in mothers, which would increase stress levels within the family in general, affecting the relationship with the children.
It is not clear why this would only affect daughters and not sons, but it is thought that it could be linked to certain aspects of the type of relationship that fathers and daughters have during their teenage years.
And although the exact reason is unknown, the results prove that it is important to attend to the mental health of mothers and fathers after childbirth, to detect possible problems in time and thus avoid affecting them and their children.
