Paternal Perinatal Depression

Paternal Perinatal Depression (PPND) refers to the onset of depressive symptoms in fathers from pregnancy to the first post-partum year (Baldoni, Ceccarelli, 2010, 2013). Although this clinical expression has been known for several decades, a specific diagnosis was suggested for the first time only a few years ago in the French psychoanalytic-oriented literature (Luca, Bydlowski, 2001). A diagnosis of PPND is preferable to that of Paternal Postpartum Depression or Paternal Postnatal Depression, since clinical onset appears to occur long before the baby’s birth, although the symptoms tend to last throughout the 12 months postpartum period. Less severe affective disorders in fathers have been described sometimes as Paternal Blues or Baby Blues. PPND differs from Couvade Syndrome which is characterized by mild somatic symptoms and typical female pregnancy behaviour that rarely develops into a worrying psychopathology. Symptoms of PPND are different from those of Maternal Perinatal Depression (MPND), even if time of onset and duration of the disease may be the same. Depressive symptoms in fathers are generally milder and less defined than in mothers and often occur in comorbidity with other syndromes whose symptoms could overlap with the affective one, or mask it, causing complicated clinical pictures.