World Day Against Depression
For the 2026 World Day against Depression, I want to stress the importance of depression during the perinatal period (pregnancy and postpartum): a frequent, unrecognised problem that affects both the mothers and their offspring, but also an opportunity for treatment.
Of the more than 300 million people with depression in the world, 60% are women. Most importantly, contrary to the social myth that having a baby always brings happiness, around one in 8-10 mothers in the perinatal period suffer from clinically significant depression. Indeed, what is usually called ‘postpartum depression’ is often depression that starts in pregnancy and that only comes to the attention of the family and health professional after the baby is born, because mothers can no longer cope.
Worryingly, these rates are going up. Peaking at 1 in 4 mothers during COVID, the increase had started before that. Why? Because mothers in the perinatal period are the “canary in the mine” of society. The most important risk factors for perinatal depression are psychosocial: poverty, social isolation, lack of support from partners and family. When psychosocial circumstances deteriorate, with the cost-of-living crisis, austerity policies and the collapse of the social state affecting so many, mothers suffer first and most.
However, even more worryingly, perinatal depression makes also the offspring suffer. Strong evidence shows that perinatal depression increases the risk of depression and other mental health problems in the offspring, once they reach adolescence and young adulthood. Moreover, these children also show disabling social impact, including conduct problems, leaving school early, interactions with the justice system and loss of productivity. Indeed, health economics show that three-quarters of the cost of perinatal mental health problems relates to adverse impacts on the child rather than on the mother.
These effects on the offspring are not deterministic: not all children of mothers with perinatal depression will develop mental health or social problems. But the risk is certainly increased compared with children of healthy mothers, due to the psychosocial and biological consequences of perinatal depression, like disrupting mother-infant interaction and affecting children’s biological stress systems and brain development.
But not all is lost. This piece is not about scaremongering but rather about pointing a way forward.
The perinatal period is, in most cultural and social contexts, a time of increased contact between women and the health system, for monitoring pregnancy and then the baby. This is thus a time where depression can, and must, be recognised and treated. Many therapeutic approaches are safe and effective in the perinatal period, from antidepressant medications to psychological interventions (focused on the mothers or on the relationship between the mothers and the children). We have recently shown that community singing groups reduce postpartum depression and improve mother-infant communication.
The time to stop the transmission of depression from mothers to children is now.
Professor of Biological Psychiatry at King’s College London and an expert in depression. He is the editor of the mental health digital magazine Inspire the Mind.