New Treatment For Postpartum Depression

After women experience the pain of giving birth to their child, it’s not the end of their nightmare for most of them. Many might have Postpartum depression. Postpartum depression is a mental health illness that causes women having moods of sadness, loneliness, worthlessness, and anxiety all the time after giving birth. Around 400,000 women experience it each year in the U.S. Postpartum depression caused many serious problems like domestic violence since mothers are always in a bad mood, they might have a high chance of having physical abuse toward their child or children. Luckily, The Food and Drug Administration approves the first treatment for postpartum depression called brexanolone or Zulresso on March 19, 2019, and is going to be launch in around June 2019.

This brand new treatment contains neurologic steroid allopregnanolone, which is a breakdown product of sex hormone and people produce them naturally. During women’s pregnancy, the blood levels of allopregnanolone that they produce in their brain, ovary, and placenta increase in order to modulate their brain function. After childbirth, they’ll have a sharp decrease in it. Therefore, their brain will suddenly lose the thing that has been modulated its function for nearly ten months and the sharp decrease triggers the mothers to become depressed or angry, which cause postpartum depression. Since Zulresso has contained allopregnanolone in it, it will decrease the need for allopregnanolone for the patient. When the treatment is injected into the patient’s body, the drug will bind with the GABA receptor. GABA receptors respond to the neurotransmitter(GABA), which transmit chemical messages or signals through the brain and nervous system. GABA plays an important role in the human body by controlling human behaviors, feelings, and body’s response to stress.

Therefore, when the drug bind with the GABA receptors, it sends the message of “increase the allopregnanolone” and GABA receptors receive the message and GABA sends the message to the brain and tells what should it do. In this way, the drug may restart the brain activity that is tied to postpartum depression symptoms and change the body’s stressed respond, according to Sage Therapeutics(the company that makes Zulresso). The treatment is being transferred to the patient by intravenous infusion and it will take 60 hours for one treatment. The side effects of Zulresso include dizziness, headache, and sleepiness. Therefore, the patients aren’t allowed to have a great amount of it and are required to receive treatment in a hospital in order to be monitored. Also, the cost for having the treatment is about $34,000 USD per dose and not including the hospitalization expenses for at least. This might cause low-income family can’t afford this huge payment. Overall, Zulresso is effective in patients with postpartum depression. This new treatment will not only reduce the percentage of domestic violence and suicide population, but it will also make every mother have a great time with their family after giving birth and improve their relationship with everyone. The society will be full of happy mother and family.