Perinatal Depression: Recommendations for Prevention and the Challenges of Implementation

( JAMA . 2019;321(6):550–552) The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued a recommendation of referring women at risk for perinatal depression to counseling. Perinatal depression affects 11.5% of mothers in the United States annually and is associated with short and long term risks to both mother and infant. Although the USPSTF had previously recommended screening for depression in all adults, including pregnant and postpartum women, the new recommendation focused on prevention instead of screening. To enact this advised change in approach, more research is needed to determine how to identify at-risk women, connect the identified women to effective treatments, and gage the outcomes of this new approach.