(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — An estimated 4 million women in the United States have bipolar disorder, but a new study from Northwestern Medicine found there are eight symptoms that are significantly more severe and frequent in women about to give birth.
Those symptoms are depressed mood, gastrointestinal symptoms, difficulty falling asleep, feelings of guilt, suicidal ideation, agitation, paranoia, and obsessional and compulsive symptoms.
Researchers screened about 10,000 perinatal women who were within four to six weeks of them giving birth.
Not only did the study find perinatal women with bipolar disorder suffered more severe depression, they were also more likely to have an anxiety disorder.
Although depression screening is recommended for all perinatal women, differentiating from these two disorders is challenging. It often results in women with bipolar disorder being misdiagnosed with unipolar disorder, which results in inappropriate treatment and poor outcomes.
“This finding is another step closer toward differentiating whether depressive symptoms are due to bipolar disorder or unipolar disorder during the perinatal period, which is a vulnerable time for episode onset,” said lead study author Dr. Crystal Clark, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Future research must look for biomarkers that will aid in early and accurate diagnosis of bipolar disorder.”
The study was recently published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.
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