Grant: Operating Grant

Women who have a history of mental health problems have higher chances than other women to have mental health problems after delivering a baby. Mental health problems after delivering a baby, like depression and psychosis (loss of contact with reality) are very difficult for new mothers and their families. It is important to better understand what causes these problems so that we can develop new ways to help. In this study, we will recruit women who have previously had mental health problems and look at genetic differences and measure how much of a particular kind of B vitamin women have in their blood. We want to see if these things can contribute to the risk for developing mental health problems after delivering a baby. If we find that they do contribute to a woman's risk, we might be able to develop and test new strategies to help these women.