Postpartum/chronic depression and breastfeeding

Hello, I am Rachel , a junior nursing student at the University of North Dakota. 
I am interested in the effects of postpartum depression and chronic 
depression on breastfeeding initiation and maintenance. 

Pippins, Brawarsky, Jackson, Fuentes- Afflick, & Haas (2006) found that 
evidence of depression during and after pregnancy does not affect initiation of 
breastfeeding, but does negatively affect how many mothers will maintain 
breastfeeding for one month’s time. This article focused on depression 
throughout pregnancy and not just on postpartum depression. 

Postpartum depression was discussed more thoroughly in Boyd, Zayas, and 
McKee’s article about the effects of postpartum depression on breastfeeding 
and infant-mother interaction. They bring up the fact that infants of 
depressed mothers have “atypical frontal lobe electrical activity”, and that 
this can cause problems with feeding. These babies can also be more irritable 
and do less exploring with their mouths which can also hinder proper 
breastfeeding. Postpartum depression often leads to poor or strained mother-
infant attachment. (2006)

Hatton et al. (2005) identifies postpartum depression as being evident in 10 to 
20 percent of mothers following birth. They did follow up research with 
mothers and found that postpartum depression does impact the prevalence of 
breastfeeding. Their studies showed that breastfeeding rates for depressed 
women were below the non-depressed sample group at 6 weeks postpartum. 
All of these studies found that postpartum depression and chronic depression 
negatively impact how long a woman will breastfeed. I also found some 
inconsistent literature about how depression negatively affects the amount of 
milk production.

What are some common interventions for helping postpartum depressed 
women maintain breastfeeding?
Have you witnessed poor infant-mother interaction due to maternal 
depression? Thank you.

References

Boyd, R.C., Zayas, L.H., & McKee, M.D. (2006). Mother-infant interaction, life 
events and prenatal and postpartum depressive symptoms among urban 
minority women in primary care. Maternal and Child Health Journal,10(2), 139-
148.

Hatton, D.C., Harrison-Hohner, J., Coste, S., Dorato, V., Curet, L.B., & 
McCarron, D.A. (2005). Symptoms of postpartum depression and 
breastfeeding. Journal of Human Lactation, 21(4), 444-449.

Pippins, J.R., Brawarsky, P., Jackson, R.A., Fuentes-Afflick, E., & Haas, J.S. 
(2006). Association of breastfeeding with maternal depressive symptoms. 
Journal of Woman’s Health, 15(6), 754-762.

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