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Postpartum depression is thought to be triggered by sudden decreases in estrogen after delivery, although estrogen levels do not predict risk. In this elegantly designed study, researchers defined genomic regions of estrogen-mediated epigenetic change in murine hippocampus and then examined similar regions in blood-cell DNA in 93 pregnant women at risk for mood disorders because of their histories. Three authors have interests in a related patent application.
Two subgroups were drawn from this population — 32 women who were not depressed prepartum, of whom 11 developed postpartum depression, and 19 women who were depressed while pregnant, of whom 12 remained depressed postpartum. In both subgroups, women developing depression had larger meth…