DANVILLE, Pa. — Feeling a little sad after giving birth is normal. According to Geisinger, around 85 percent of women experience mood symptoms within the first week of childbirth, but about 10 to 15 percent of those women will experience postpartum depression.
The FDA recently approved Zuranolone, the first oral medication to treat postpartum depression. Women take Zuranolone for two weeks.
"When It comes to treating postpartum depression, that obviously meets our goal. We want women to feel better as fast as possible," said Dr. Elise Bennett, an outpatient psychiatrist at Geisinger.
Dr. Bennett says the drug works fast. In a recent study, 60 percent of women had significant improvement in postpartum depression after taking Zuranolone.
"30 to 40 percent actually had complete remission of symptoms. That means they didn't have any depressive symptoms at all. And the majority of that improvement was seen in three days."
Dr. Bennett says women who are breastfeeding cannot take the medication.
"It was not studied in breastfeeding. We don't know anything about how it affects infants. We have a couple of tests showing it was present in very low levels in the milk, but none of the women in the studies were breastfeeding."
The pill is expected to be available to the public within the next 90 days.
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