事件记录
这是荷尔蒙作用下的大脑. 这是你的大脑缺乏荷尔蒙. 这就是你的大脑. 听起来像金发女孩? There's a new treatment for postpartum depression that aims to make this better.
About one in seven women will suffer from postpartum depression. This isn't just a couple of days of feeling overwhelmed with the baby blues, something most of us felt in the weeks after a baby is born. This is overwhelming depression and inability to care for oneself and one's newborn. Neuroscientists have always been interested by the effect of sex steroids on the brain, 雌激素, 黄体酮, 和睾丸素. Those of us who practice reproductive endocrinology like me have a particular interest in progesterone and its metabolites, the molecules that the brain makes out of progesterone.
Progesterone and its brain metabolite allopregnanolone seem to make the brain less irritable. And falling progesterone at the end of the menstrual period may have a role in PMS in some vulnerable women. Progesterone is the most abundant hormone in pregnancy and some think that dramatic drop in progesterone after birth may have a role in postpartum depression.
对于大多数产后抑郁症的女性来说, 它似乎会在几周到几个月内消失, but some women benefit from talk therapy or the usual antidepressants. But that can take weeks for a measurable difference. 直到现在, the therapies focused on postpartum depression have been based on the same principles and medication as depression that happens to men and women who haven't been recently pregnant. 然而, looking at the link of falling progesterone and its brain metabolite allopregnanolone, some researchers have wondered if administering allopregnanolone to women with severe postpartum depression who aren't benefiting from regular therapy might be an approach.
A pharmaceutical company has created allopregnanolone in the lab and call it Brexanolone. The research focused on women with severe postpartum depression who are randomized to a 60-hour infusion of Brexanolone or placebo. The women were within six months of giving birth and had experienced depression within a month after delivery. 这些妇女非常沮丧. Starting out with an average score of 28 out of 30 on a standard depression scale, 这真的很令人沮丧.
注射后, 在注射之后, 没过几周, women who received the Brexanolone had an average score of nine to 10. And women who received placebo had an average score 14. That meant that placebo works which we know from all studies of antidepressants but the Brexanolone worked better. Twice as many women who received the study drug had scores similar to non-depressed women than women who received placebo. The effect lasted for up to 30 days and maybe longer. And this might be enough for other therapies to take hold.
它有一些缺点. One is that the infusion has to be done in a hospital setting as one in eight women had dizziness and several women temporarily lost consciousness, 晕了过去. 这种药物本身的平均价格为34美元,000 but there may be some ways that insurance or rebates from the drug company might help. And there is the cost of the infusion in the hospital-based monitoring.
The pharmaceutical company is currently studying an oral form of this hormone though they don't call it a hormone. It looks and acts like a naturally occurring hormone allopregnanolone and that's made in the brain, 所以我叫它荷尔蒙.
The most important aspect of those women who had this treatment is that it worked so quickly. We're all concerned that women with postpartum depression get diagnosed, 开始治疗, 获得家庭支持, 得到最好的治疗. The consequences for the new baby and for the family of a mom who's withdrawn and possibly suicidal is very significant.
So, this therapy isn't necessarily for all women with postpartum depression but for women for whom regular treatment isn't working and who are struggling to care for themselves or their baby. It's an innovative approach and it's good news for the women, 她们的婴儿, and their families who are struggling at a pivotal time of their lives. 所以，照顾好你自己和宝宝. 如果你需要大发娱乐，寻求大发娱乐. 有新的东西在路上. 感谢收看《大发娱乐》栏目.