We recently noted that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnoses are increasing, especially in women of child-bearing age.1 Additionally, the CDC noted that self-reported postpartum depression symptoms are also increasing.2 A study of pregnant women in Sweden showed that women with ADHD are much more likely to be diagnosed with both postpartum depression (PPD) and postpartum anxiety, but the greatest risk was in those who had a history of depression and anxiety diagnoses.3
We wanted to understand whether pre-pregnancy ADHD without a history of depression was correlated with a mother’s risk of developing PPD. We studied 15,488 pregnancies for mothers with ADHD and 61,952 pregnancies for mothers without ADHD to assess the relative risk of PPD in both populations. We matched the two populations based on race and ethnicity of the mother, social vulnerability index, maternal age at delivery, singleton or multiple birth, pre-pregnancy anxiety diagnosis, and self-reported measures of substance use, food scarcity, intimate partner violence, and stress.
We found that mothers with ADHD who have no history of depression are 24% more likely to be diagnosed with PPD than mothers without ADHD who have no history of depression, as shown in Figure 1.
