Women with major depressive disorder (MDD) experienced high rates of recurrent depression across the childbearing years, according to a recent study. Subjects were women with histories of MDD who had participated in prior prospective, observational studies during pregnancy. In the follow‐up, participants completed a structured interview that addressed (1) the course of MDD since their index pregnancy, (2) new psychiatric diagnoses, and (3) the course of MDD and treatment across subsequent pregnancies. Researchers found:

• Out of 129 eligible women, 48.8% participated (n=63) with an average/mean time of 12.9 years (SD=1.9, 8.8–16.7) elapsed since participation in the prior pregnancy studies.
• Although approximately one-third reported sustained remission from MDD since the pregnancy during which they had been originally followed, of the remaining two-thirds of women who reported subsequent depressive episodes, almost one-fifth (∼12% of the total sample) endorsed depression >50% of the time following their index pregnancy.
• A total of 6.3% of the women with previous validated diagnoses of MDD reported new diagnoses of bipolar disorder.