New study by University of Virginia researcher.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Researchers have identified a marker in the blood that can identify women who might be at risk for postpartum depression.
Postpartum depression is a debilitating disorder that affects mothers directly giving birth and puts infants at increased risk for poor behavioral, cognitive and social development. According to the American Psychological Association, around nine to 16 percent of American women who have given birth will experience PPD, while the risk of PPD may rise to 41 percent for women who had the condition after a previous pregnancy.
“We can greatly improve the outcome of this disorder with the identification of markers, biological or otherwise, that can identify women who may be at risk for its development,” said Connelly, senior author of the study and an assistant professor of Psychology at University of Virginia.
Connelly ‘s team hypothesized that the oxytocin receptor may also play a role and identified a relationship between genetic and epigenetic markers in this gene that increase the chance of a woman developing postpartum depression.
The findings of the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Genetics, show that there is indeed a relationship between the genotype rs53576, the regulation of gene expression levels of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR), and the development of PPD, reported Tech Times.
The study sample was from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children in the United Kingdom, and the authors emphasized the importance of replicating the findings in other population samples.
“Our data need to be replicated, but it is our hope that the oxytocin receptor marker we have identified will be useful to clinicians in identifying women at risk for postpartum depression,” said first author Aleeca Bell, of the University of Illinois, Chicago.