FRIDAY, May 23, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- New parents can become consumed with worry over the well-being of their newborn baby, and sometimes those thoughts become intrusive and debilitating, causing some parents to require psychiatric care.
Such symptoms range in severity from mild to highly distressing -- and, according to a new study, they may be much more common than previously thought.
Researchers from the Mayo Clinic examined the prevalence of obsessive symptoms and coping strategies in 146 new parents of babies under 6 months of age using a standardized questionnaire.
While most parents did not report severe or highly distressing symptoms, the majority of subjects did report experiencing upsetting thoughts about their child.
"We were really surprised by how many fathers reported experiencing these symptoms, especially," says lead author Dr. Katherine Moore, a psychiatrist with the Mayo Clinic. The study was the first of its kind to look at intrusive thoughts in new fathers.
According to the findings, which were reported May 21 at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in San Francisco, 68 percent of mothers and 58 percent of fathers reported having intrusive thoughts about their child. These thoughts included visions of the baby's death or ideas about harming the child.
To manage these upsetting thoughts, the parents in the study used a variety of coping strategies, including self-reassurance, checking on their baby or avoiding the child.
"This is a terrifying time for a new parent. They end up alienating themselves from the child as a coping strategy, which leads to depression," says Jane Honikman, founding director of Postpartum Support International (PSI), which counsels parents who experience obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and other mental health disorders after the birth of their child.
PSI was formed in the 1960s by a group of young mothers who experienced OCD and other symptoms after childbirth but who couldn't find help or support for their condition.
"The person with these thoughts thinks they're a bad person. People are fearful of saying anything because they're afraid that they'll have the baby taken from them," Honikman says. "And in fact, there are people who have had their babies taken away because they dared to say they had these thoughts about the child."
Given the high prevalence of obsessive symptoms found in this population of parents, the research team says education and counseling about intrusive thoughts might be useful to new parents.
Honikman agrees with that conclusion. She says this kind of scientific research should be used to "help individuals distinguish between what might be a common thought and what might be a serious disorder."
More information
Read more about the problem at Depression After Delivery or Postpartum Support International.
