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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A first of its kind study discovered pregnant women and new mothers with diabetes were approximately 55 to 60 percent more likely to experience postpartum depression.
Investigators at Harvard Medical School and the University of Minnesota School of Public Health gathered the research. They specifically looked at the medical history of low-income mothers.
"While previous studies have linked diabetes and depression in the general population, this is the first time, to our knowledge, that the relationship has been studied specifically in pregnant women and new mothers," Katy Backes Kozhimannil, research fellow in the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care was quoted as saying. "We believe these findings may help clinicians better identify and treat depression in new mothers."
The researchers caution that these findings do not establish that diabetes causes postpartum depression, only that the two are related.
SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association, February 2009
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