Overview

• Postpartum depression was about 20% more likely during weeks 5–15 after birth compared with the year before pregnancy, the Molecular Psychiatry study reports.
• Risk of postpartum psychosis rose up to sevenfold in the first 20 weeks after delivery, according to week-by-week analyses.
• From 2003 to 2019, incident maternal psychiatric diagnoses increased overall, fell during pregnancy, then returned to preconception levels in the postpartum year.
• Following Sweden’s 2020 rollout of national depression screening, the peak of postpartum depression diagnoses shifted earlier without increasing total diagnoses.
• A companion Nature Human Behaviour study of 2.196 million pregnancies recorded 7,469 maternal and 8,338 paternal suicide attempts, with mothers’ risk lowest in the first postpartum week (IRR ~0.14) and fathers showing an early 10‑week dip followed by a later rise.