An international panel of experts on women’s mental health is calling for postpartum psychosis to be classified as a distinct mental illness in medical coding systems, according to a consensus statement published Oct. 22 in Biology Psychiatry.
The panel, led by Veerle Bergink, MD, PhD, director of the women’s mental health center at New York City-based Mount Sinai, said postpartum psychosis shares features with bipolar disorder but has a distinct clinical and genetic profile. To improve care and outcomes, the panel recommended adding the diagnosis to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual or the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases.
The condition emerges within 12 weeks of childbirth and, in most cases, constitutes a psychiatric emergency requiring hospitalization. It presents with mania, psychosis or depression with psychotic features and can carry a risk of suicide and infanticide if untreated, according to the paper.
