The Association Between Autoimmune Disease & Perinatal Depression

Women account for around 80% of all cases of autoimmune disease1. For lupus, the ratio of women to men is closer to 9:12. For multiple sclerosis, it's 3:13. The list goes on.

Ongoing research is looking into the root of these disproportionate statistics in the hopes of better understanding, treating, and preventing autoimmune diseases in the future. For now, it's all about gathering associations. Most recently, a bidirectional relationship between autoimmune disease and an often ignored form of depression has surfaced.

This study focused on a cohort of Swedish women. Among this cohort, 55,000 women had perinatal depression. Forty-one subtypes of autoimmune diagnoses were also recorded.

The bidirectional association between autoimmune disease and depression was most pronounced among women who struggled with perinatal depression only, as opposed to those with compounding psychiatric concerns like anxiety, ADHD, etc. In addition, the association was strongest for multiple sclerosis compared to other autoimmune diseases.

It's important to remember that this is an association, not a causation. There seem to be a few different causes of both perinatal depression and autoimmune disease—with some overlap. If you made a Venn diagram for the causes of each condition, factors like increased stress and hormones would be in the middle.

With this finding, hopefully, physicians and women affected can be more aware of the increased risk of perinatal depression among women with autoimmune diseases and vice versa. For both of these health concerns, early detection can be incredibly powerful, so the more knowledge, the better.