Why We Should Not Routinely Screen Postpartum Women for Depression
Routine screening sounds like a great idea, but there is a lot of evidence that screening would not improve the outcome of depression for women after a pregnancy.
[This article was originally published on LinkedIn on March 3, 2019, but the evidence that has accumulated since gives even more support to my claims.]
The February 22 2019 article Are We Massively Underestimating How Many Postpartum Women are Depressed? posted on the Annenberg Center for Health Journalism website starts with some basic misunderstandings of what screening for depression is and what it can achieve. The article then proceeds to compound this misunderstanding.
There is a lack of evidence that routine screening for depression improves women's birth or depression outcomes. That is what matters most in proposing an addon to health care.
That a problem like depression is going untreated does in itself not justify starting routine screening.
What?!! We need to show that women get better outcomes if we screen. Don't be surprised if we cannot.
Achieving that goal may require adding additional resources to the system. Without these resources, starting screening may only tax an overbu…