While perinatal depression is typically considered to be a woman’s illness, multiple studies have suggested that, while men do not experience any of the dramatic physiological or hormonal changes that go along with pregnancy and childbirth, new fathers may also suffer from depression related to pregnancy and the postpartum period. In a systematic review of the literature, Mazza and colleagues take a look at depression in expecting and new fathers, asking whether paternal perinatal depression is a valid diagnosis.
In this review, they are evaluated 204 studies which measured depressive symptoms in expectant and new fathers with a total