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Recently, scientist had found that a simple blood check could detect postnatal depression. This could be a big help for doctors to determine new mothers who are at risk of emotional changes after delivery.

Postnatal depression is also known as postpartum depression, is a type of clinical depression that often affect women (less in men), which usually appears after childbirth. Postpartum depression occurs in women after they have carried a child.

Unlike the ‘baby blues syndrome’ scientists believe is lighter and shorter, symptoms of postnatal depression include sadness, fatigue, changes in sleeping and eating patterns, reduced libido, crying episodes, anxiety, and irritability. Although a number of risk factors have been identified, the causes of PPD are not well understood. Many women recover with a treatment consisting of a support group or counseling.

It is known that around two week after giving birth, about 14 percent of women experience postnatal depression. For this reason, scientists are hoping that they could develop a blood test in order to identify the possibility of a mother to experience the condition.

“Current screening policies rely on the opportunistic finding of postnatal depression cases using tools such as the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Score, but such tests cannot identify women at risk, ahead of them developing the condition,” Grammatopoulos said.

“We think that we have made an important step forward in characterizing the prospective risks and are therefore paving the way for timely, appropriate medical treatment for women who are likely to develop postnatal depression,” expleained study researcher Dimitris Grammatopoulos, from the University of Warwick, in the United Kingdom.

The researchers say that postnatal depression is a really serious health problem. the postnatal depression could show signs of sadness even crying, reduced libido, eating and sleeping pattern changes, anxiety, and even irritability.

The postnatal depression certainly has negative effects for the children. The children will experience lack of attention from their mothers. Mothers who are depressed certainly will tend to avoid their children, this could provide negative impact on the child’s learning and could effect the child’s emotionally later in their lives.

The research, which was presented at the joint 15th International Congress of Endocrinology/14th European Congress of Endocrinology, was conducted two to eight weeks after the mothers gave birth to their children. There was a group of 200 women that was tested by the researchers. The scientists then compared the scores with the genetics.

From the research, scientists found that women who developed postnatal depression had a specific genetic variants that controls a pathway in the brain named the HPA axis. These are hormones that are activated in response to stress.

From the findings of the research that took place in Florence, Italy on May 5 to 9, 2012, it was also known that genetically, some women could be more reactive to environmental factors that could trigger depression. This is because postnatal depression is a specific subgroup of depression with a distinct genetic element.

“We believe that we have made a discovery with important clinical and social implications. If we can identify women likely to suffer from postnatal depression in advance so that they can be treated appropriately and at an early stage, we will have improved the lives not just of the parents, but also of their children,” Grammatopoulos said.