Abstract
Although the association between partner status and postpartum depression (PPD) is well studied, less is known about how a partner’s psychiatric history affects PPD risk in partnered mothers. Here, using maternal PPD screenings merged with Danish registers from 149,383 childbirths, we examined the influence of partner status and partner mental health on PPD risk. Exposures were partner status and partner psychiatric history, and outcomes were PPD (positive screening) and severe PPD (antidepressants or diagnosis). In total, 14.7% were unpartnered mothers, with a higher risk of PPD (absolute risk (AR) 8.9% versus 7.0%; relative risk (RR) 1.11 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.05–1.16)) and severe PPD (AR 1.1% versus 0.9%; RR 0.99 (95% CI 0.86–1.14)) compared with partnered mothers. Among partnered mothers, 19.7% had partners with psychiatric history. Recent psychiatric history increased the risk of PPD (AR 8.3%; RR 1.10 (95% CI 1.02–1.18)) and severe PPD (AR 1.5%; RR 1.42 (95% CI 1.18–1.69)), compared with no psychiatric history. We show that unpartnered mothers face a slightly increased PPD risk, while recent partner psychiatric episodes markedly increase risk in partnered mothers.
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Data availability
In accordance with Danish data protection laws, individual-level data are not accessible to the public. The data used for this study are stored on a secure platform at Statistics Denmark and are available upon request to the authors, subject to legal and ethical approvals. Approval can be obtained from Statistics Denmark’s research service.
Code availability
All analyses were conducted using Stata version 15. The code used in this study is not publicly available due to data confidentiality regulations within Statistics Denmark but can be shared upon reasonable request, subject to a case-by-case evaluation.
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Acknowledgements
We express our gratitude to all the parents, healthcare nurses and participating municipalities for granting access to the postpartum depression screenings. M.-M.Z.K., M.L.M. and T.M.-O. are funded by The Lundbeck Foundation (grant no. R313-2019-569). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.
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M.-M.Z.K. led the work under supervision of T.M.-O. M.-M.Z.K., X.L., K.B.M., A.F.E., S.Z.K., M.L.M., V.B., V.G.F. and T.M.-O. contributed to the study conception and design. M.-M.Z.K., K.B.M. and T.M.-O. contributed to the data acquisition. Data analyses were performed by M.-M.Z.K. The first draft of the manuscript was written by M.-M.Z.K., and M.-M.Z.K., X.L., K.B.M., A.F.E., S.Z.K., M.L.M., V.B., V.G.F. and T.M.-O. critically revised it. M.-M.Z.K., X.L., K.B.M., A.F.E., S.Z.K., M.L.M., V.B., V.G.F. and T.M.-O. read and approved the final manuscript.
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K.B.M. has received speaker’s fee from Medice Nordic in the past 3 years. T.M.-O. has received speaker’s fee from Lundbeck A/S during the same period. V.G.F. has served as a lecturer for Lundbeck A/S, Janssen-Cilag, Gedeon Richter and Ferring Pharmaceuticals in the past 3 years. The other authors declare no competing interests.
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Zacher Kjeldsen, MM., Liu, X., Bang Madsen, K. et al. Partner status and partner mental health and the risk of postpartum depression. Nat. Mental Health (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-025-00461-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-025-00461-z
