APP supports expert panel in call for postpartum psychosis to be recognised by diagnostic manuals

An international panel of women's mental health experts has, this month, issued a call for postpartum psychosis (PP) to be formally recognised in diagnosis classification manuals.

Professor Veerle Bergink of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Erasmus University in Rotterdam, led a panel of prominent PP academics, including APP's Professor Ian Jones and Trustee Dr Clare Dolman, in developing a consensus statement. Professor Bergink said: “We argue that with its specific onset, phenotype, phenomenology, risk profile, and prognosis, postpartum psychosis has distinct prevention and treatment recommendations.”

The team have spent several years pulling together clinical and biological evidence and consulting patient groups, to demonstrate that postpartum psychosis deserves official recognition and a new classification should be created within the bipolar disorder chapters.

Although the term is used widely by clinicians, researchers and people with lived experience, official diagnostic manuals currently force doctors to classify postpartum psychosis under a range of different names in different subsections of the classification manual, leading to confusion for patients, clinicians and researchers alike.

Dr Clare Dolman, King’s College and University of Edinburgh, Trustee of Action on Postpartum Psychosis, said: “The case for postpartum psychosis being recognised as a distinct condition in the diagnostic manuals is clear and is supported by the wealth of evidence provided by the Expert Panel. Both as a researcher in this area for 15 years - and a woman who has suffered a postpartum psychosis - I do not understand the reluctance to make this straightforward but much-needed change.”

Dr Jess Heron, CEO, Action on Postpartum Psychosis, said: “This is a momentous occasion. If these recommendations are accepted by the team who oversee the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) in the US, it could lead to significant improvements in patient care and research quality globally.”

The full consensus statement is available here.

The issue of diagnosis is a confusing topic for many people affected by PP and their families (partly caused by its absence from diagnostic manuals). For help and support, please reach out to APP’s peer supporters, or join a discussion on the APP forum.