More Women May Be Experiencing Depression During Pregnancy

While postpartum depression has been a known ailment that affects new moms, there has been a shift recently that is making more moms-to-be depressed. Instead of the depression and anxiety setting in after the baby is born, women today are beginning to get depressed in their third trimester.

This depression seems to be predominantly rooted in anxiety. Whether this anxiety comes from social media it’s tendency to cause people to compare their lives to others, that women are expected to work and maintain their homes and children, the strain on intimate relationships, or a lack of support systems with close friends and family, women today are facing higher levels, and at earlier times, than women who were pregnant in the 80’s and 90’s. Additionally, it now takes two incomes in the United Kingdom (where the study took place) to run a household now, so financial strain is also a bigger factor than it once was.

These problems are not only in the UK though, there has also been this paradigm shift in the United States. Overall, these depressed feelings are coming from women feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and alone in their pregnancies and lives, so is it mainly rooted in anxiety rather than sadness and depression.

Key Points:

  • 1Even though pregnant woman have partners they feel isolated and lack support of family.
  • 2Older generation screenings have shown 15% depression during pregnancy where current is 25%.
  • 3Studies have shown postpartum depression can start as early as the third trimester.


Our data suggest that the symptoms driving the increase in total scores were those related to feeling overwhelmed and stress and anxiety rather than feelings of being down and unmotivated
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Written by HealthStatus
Medical Writer & Editor

HealthStatus has been operating since 1998 providing the best interactive health tools on the Internet, millions of visitors have used our health risk assessment, body fat and calories burned calculators. The HealthStatus editorial team has continued that commitment to excellence by providing our visitors with easy to understand high quality health content for many years.

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