Postpartum depression (PPD), also called postnatal depression, is a mood disorder experienced after childbirth, which can affect men and women. Symptoms may include extreme sadness, low energy, anxiety, crying episodes, irritability, and changes in sleeping or eating patterns. PPD can also negatively affect the newborn child.
Postpartum blues, also known as baby blues and maternity blues, is a very common but self-limited condition that begins shortly after childbirth and can present with a variety of symptoms such as mood swings, irritability, and tearfulness. Mothers may experience negative mood symptoms mixed with intense periods of joy. Up to 85% of new mothers are affected by postpartum blues, with symptoms starting within a few days after childbirth and lasting up to two weeks in duration. Treatment is supportive, including ensuring adequate sleep and emotional support. If symptoms are severe enough to affect daily functioning or last longer than two weeks, the individual should be evaluated for related postpartum psychiatric conditions, such as postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety. It is unclear whether the condition can be prevented, however education and reassurance are important to help alleviate patient distress.
Eva Lucille Feldman is an American physician-scientist who is a leading authority on neurodegenerative disease. She serves as the Russell N. DeJong Professor of Neurology at the University of Michigan, as well as Director of the NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies and ALS Center of Excellence at Michigan Medicine. She was also named the James W. Albers Distinguished University Professor of Neurology.
David Bradley Allison is an American obesity researcher, biostatistician, and psychologist. He is the dean of the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington and, in 2007, was one of the top 10 scientists in the world awarded the most NIH grants. Allison was previously Distinguished Professor, Quetelet Endowed Professor, and Director of the NIH-funded Nutrition Obesity Research Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).
Antenatal depression, also known as prenatal or perinatal depression, is a form of clinical depression that can affect a woman during pregnancy, and can be a precursor to postpartum depression if not properly treated. It is estimated that 7% to 20% of pregnant women are affected by this condition. Any form of prenatal stress felt by the mother can have negative effects on various aspects of fetal development, which can cause harm to the mother and child. Even after birth, a child born from a depressed or stressed mother feels the affects. The child is less active and can also experience emotional distress. Antenatal depression can be caused by the stress and worry that pregnancy can bring, but at a more severe level. Other triggers include unplanned pregnancy, difficulty becoming pregnant, history of abuse, and economic or family situations.
Yoke Peng Loh is an American biochemist and molecular biologist currently acting as Senior Investigator and Head at the Section on Cellular Neurobiology, Laboratory of Developmental Neurobiology, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Institutes of Health (NIH). She earned a B.S. in biochemistry at University College Dublin in 1969 and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1973. She did her postdoctoral work with Harold Gainer at NIH and at the Max Planck Institute in Germany.
Nicole Lyn Letourneau is a Canadian professor and researcher. She is the University of Calgary Research Excellence Chair in Parent and Child Mental Health. Formerly she held Research Chairs in Parent and Infant./Child Mental Health funded by Alberta Children's Hospital, Palix/Norlien, and Newall Family Foundations (2011–2023). She currently serves as the Scientific Director of the Alliance against Violence and Adversity (AVA) Health Research Training Platform and Women's and Girls' Health Hub. She is also the director of RESOLVE Alberta and principal investigator for the CHILD Studies Program at Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute. She has written over 270 peer-reviewed publications; authored the books, Parenting and Child Development: Issues and Answers, What Kind of Parent Am I:Self-Surveys That Reveal The Impact of Toxic Stress Scientific Parenting: What Science reveals about Parental Impact, and has contributed more than 20 other books on parenting and childcare.
Jeanne Elaine Griffith was the director of the Division of Science Resource Studies at the National Science Foundation. She was known throughout her career as a supporter and mentor of junior staff in the Federal Statistical System of the United States.
Carol Anne Gotway Crawford is an American mathematical statistician and from 2018 to 2020 served as Chief Statistician of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). She joined the GAO in May 2017. From August 2014 to April 2017, she was with the Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service. She was formerly at the National Center for Environmental Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She also holds an adjunct faculty position at the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, and is an expert in biostatistics, spatial analysis, environmental statistics, and the statistics of public health. She also maintains an interest in geoscience and has held executive roles in the International Association for Mathematical Geosciences.
Stephanie Slepicka Shipp is an American economist and social statistician. She works at the University of Virginia as a research professor in the Social and Decision Analytics Division of the Biocomplexity Institute and Initiative.
Rebecca Gottesman is Senior Investigator and Stroke Branch Chief at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Before joining NINDS, she was Professor of Neurology and Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University. Gottesman completed a B.A. in Psychology at Columbia University (1995), an M.D. at Columbia University (2000), and a Ph.D. in Clinical Investigation at Johns Hopkins University (2007). She is a Fellow of the American Neurological Association (2012) and a Fellow of the American Heart Association (2015).
Penny Gordon-Larsen is an obesity researcher. In July 2023, she was named Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after serving as Interim Vice Chancellor for Research from March 2022. She is the Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of Global Nutrition at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, where she served as associate dean for research from 2018 to 2022, and was also named a William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor on Sept. 1, 2023. She is also a Faculty Fellow at the Carolina Population Center. Dr. Gordon-Larsen's NIH-funded research portfolio focuses on individual-, household-, and community-level susceptibility to obesity and its cardiometabolic consequences, and her work ranges from molecular and genetic to environmental and societal-level factors. She was the 2015 president of The Obesity Society and a member of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases Clinical Obesity Research Panel (CORP).
Lisa Bowleg is an applied social psychologist known for conducting research on intersectionality in social and behavioral science and the relationship between social-contextual factors and stress, resilience, and HIV risk in Black communities.
Della Marie Hann is an American psychologist and research administrator serving as the associate director for extramural research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Germaine M. Buck Louis was the Dean of the George Mason University College of Health and Human Services and professor in Mason’s Department of Global and Community Health. She led the College in becoming Virginia's first accredited College of Public Health prior to her retirement in 2022. Her expertise focuses on environmental exposures and human health, particularly human reproduction and pregnancy. Prior to her appointment as dean at George Mason in 2017, she was the founding Director for the Division of Intramural Population Health Research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Darby Saxbe is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Southern California, who researches stress within the context of relationships.
Julie Carroll Lumeng is an American developmental and behavioural paediatrician. She became the inaugural Thomas P. Borders Family Research Professor of Child Behavior and Development at the University of Michigan in October 2019 and associate dean for research at Michigan Medicine.
Cuilin Zhang is a Chinese-American epidemiologist and physician-scientist researching the roles of genetic and environmental factors in the pathogenesis of gestational diabetes, type 2 diabetes, and obesity and health consequences of these complications. Zhang is a senior investigator and acting chief of the epidemiology branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Elena Aleksandrovna Erosheva is a Russian-American statistician and social scientist whose research applies Bayesian hierarchical modeling and latent variable models to problems in the social, behavioral, and health sciences. She is a professor at the University of Washington, appointed jointly in the Department of Statistics and the School of Social Work, and the director of the university's Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences.
Christine M. Hunter is an American clinical psychologist and a uniformed service officer. She is the acting National Institutes of Health (NIH) associate director for behavioral and social sciences research and acting director of the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. Hunter was an active duty officer in the U.S. Air Force from 1996 to 2006. She is a captain in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
