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14% of new Colorado moms suffer depression, study finds

By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published April 14, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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One in seven Colorado mothers suffers from postpartum depression, but teen moms, black moms and unmarried moms suffer depression at much higher rates than that, a new study shows.

The study, published in the weekly journal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, examined 17 states and found that mothers in New Mexico have the highest rate of depression shortly after giving birth - 20 percent. Mothers in Maine have the lowest rate - 11 percent. Colorado's average is 14 percent.

In Colorado, 41 percent of black moms suffer from postpartum depression vs. 11 percent of white moms, says the report in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reader. The rate for Hispanics is 16 percent.

Among unmarried Colorado mothers, 22 percent report postpartum depression, compared with 11 percent of married mothers.

Moms who have had some education beyond high school have half the rate of depression of those who left school before graduation - 10 percent vs. 20 percent.

The CDC analyzed data from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System for 2004 and 2005, the latest years available.

The study found that depression drops sharply for Colorado mothers who have children after the age of 30. Among that age group, 9 percent report depression, contrasted with 15 percent of those 25-29; 18 percent of those 20-24 and 23 percent of teens.

The higher rates of depression among teen moms is no surprise because that age group has a much higher rate of unplanned pregnancies than do older women, said Lori Casillas, executive director of the Colorado Organization on Pregnancy, Parenting and Prevention.

"Pregnancy is the No. 1 one cause of dropping out (of school) among adolescent girls in our country," she said. "The complexities of parenthood . . . it's an enormous weight on them" when their focus should be on education and planning a future.

scanlon@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2897

Comments

  • April 14, 2008

    12:21 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    pepsijuror writes:

    Re: Symptoms Becoming Diseases

    People go to these charlatans (i.e. Psychiatrists) looking for REAL help. The grand total of what Psychiatry does is, identify symptoms and subsequently pushes drugs or called medication (lessen the blow) which suppresses (covers up) the symptoms sufficiently thus masking the true problem they’re hired and trusted to treat. This makes it nearly impossible for others to treat the problem. Drugs are doled out versus dealing with the source and/or causes.

    Many perhaps may ask why millions & millions & millions of people are against such an approach. Let’s just completely isolate and separate the differences between symptoms versus sources/causes of illness. Let’s use diabetes as an example.

    If you ask a doctor what diabetes is, he’s going give you the cause and/or source of this proven and factual disease, and possibly, perhaps if asked, the accompanied symptoms.

    You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know symptoms ARM NOT diseases. Symptoms are signs of something else that is real and not yet identified and/or treated. Symptoms simply demonstrate that something real is behind what the patient is experiencing.

    Now, on the other hand, if you ask a doctor or psychiatrist what Postpartum Depression is, he is going to spout off a whole slew of symptoms devoid of or lacking a credible cause and/or source. Try it sometime (listen very carefully).

    However, do not for moment interpret or believe that symptoms are not factual and equally uncomfortable. No one can deny symptoms exist - how else do we know someone is ill (high temperature, watery eyes, etc). Just like a leaky faucet is a symptom of something which is breaking or broken, and equally a big pain to fix, who in their right mind would satisfactorily wrap it with masking tape for the next 20 years? Anyone can identify symptoms- “Johnny has a runny nose, so he must have a cold”.

    If you ask a doctor whether there are any test to measure the patient’s dopamine, serotonin and neurotransmitters, you are going to be gravely disappointed - which throws out the whole chemical imbalance theory.

    The next time you hear someone reel off mental disorders like “James has ADD”, or “Mary has Bipolar”, or “Betty has Postpartum Depression”, find out what actually these “disorders” are minus the symptoms - get down to the crux. You’re going to find miraculously that somehow the symptoms of these “supposed diseases” have become “The Illness”, and thus treated as such. (imagine taking cough syrup for 1-10 years when asthma was the cause)

    So, in short, people each year are diagnosed with Postpartum Depression, along with a myriad of other mental disorders, over a supposition and a theory that remains unproven (no blood or forensic test). These so called Mental Disorders are actually symptoms and are being treated by high powered mind alter medication.