Dad’s testosterone levels may be important for family functioning and happiness after the birth of a baby, suggests a new study published online on August 30 in Hormones and Behavior.
The authors say this is the first study to find that paternal testosterone levels may contribute to maternal and paternal depression, parenting stress, and intimate partner aggression during the postpartum period.
“We tend to think of postpartum depression as a mom thing. It’s not. It’s a real condition that might be linked to hormones and biology,” first author Darby Saxbe, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles, said in a press release.
“We often think of motherhood as biologically driven because many mothers have biological connections to their babies through breastfeeding and pregnancy,” she added, “We don’t usually think of fatherhood in the same biological terms. We are still figuring out the biology of what makes dads tick.”
The analysis drew from a larger multisite study called the Child Community Health Network (CCHN) study. Participants included 149 couples from Lake Country, Illinois, an area north of Chicago, many of whom were low-income couples. Fifty-three percent of the fathers self-reported as belonging to a racial/ethnic minority. Thirty-five percent of fathers were foreign born, and most of these (90%) identified as Latino.
Researchers conducted in-person interviews in English or Spanish in participants’ homes at 2 months, 9 months, and 15 months postpartum. They used standardized, validated questionnaires to ask about depression, relationship satisfaction, parenting stress, and intimate partner aggression (reported by mothers), with higher scores indicating greater dysfunction.
At 9 months postpartum, fathers provided saliva samples for measuring testosterone at morning, midday, and evening to account for variations in testosterone levels over the course of a day. Testosterone peaks in the morning and declines throughout the day, and evening levels may have more to do with social behavior than morning levels, according to the authors.
Although the majority of participants did not meet criteria for clinical depression, fathers with lower testosterone levels at 9 months reported more depressive symptoms. In contrast, women of partners with lower testosterone reported fewer depressive symptoms at 9 and 15 months.
Women whose partners had higher testosterone levels reported more depressive symptoms at 9 and 15 months postpartum; the relationship was mediated by decreases in women’s relationship satisfaction.
In addition, higher levels of paternal testosterone predicted increased fathering stress and intimate partner aggression at 15 months postpartum
The authors theorized that low testosterone may be adaptive by increasing men’s nurturing behavior and family investment. Other studies have suggested that a drop in paternal testosterone after the birth of a child may be associated with more sensitive caregiving and higher levels of partner commitment.
“It may be that the fathers with lower testosterone were spending more time caring for the baby or that they had hormone profiles that were more synced up with mothers. For mothers, we know that social support buffers the risk of postpartum depression,” Dr Saxbe said.
However, high testosterone levels have been linked to risk factors for depression, such as aggression, antisocial behavior, and intimate partner aggression.
That has implications for treating depression in men, for which testosterone is sometimes prescribed. But clinicians should be aware that such prescriptions could increase family stress, Dr Saxbe warned in the press release.
“One take-away from this study is that supplementing [testosterone] is not a good idea for treating fathers with postpartum depression,” she said. “Low testosterone during the postpartum period may be a normal and natural adaptation to parenthood.”
She stressed that physical fitness and enough sleep can help normalize hormone levels. And that both mothers and fathers need to be aware of the symptoms of postpartum depression and seek support and help when they need it.
Asked for outside comment, Craig Garfield, MD, MAPP, commended the holistic approach of the study and emphasized that fathers are not always as easy to study as mothers. Dr Garfield, who was not involved in the study, is an associate professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois.
“Where a lot of studies simply look at mothers, this study looked at mothers and fathers. The fact that the authors were able to find and follow not only the mothers but the fathers too is a real strength,” he wrote in an email to Medscape Medical News.
Even so, he cautioned that the study could not establish whether a drop in testosterone really causes depressive symptoms in fathers, only that it may be associated with depression. Although 149 couples may seem like a small sample size, it may be good enough for drawing associations that inspire larger studies, he added.
“Research such as this is a welcome addition to understanding the role of fathers in families, as well as the effect of becoming a parent on men and their health,” he stressed, “This is an area where we need to learn a lot. Fathers are more involved in child rearing than ever before, and the contributions they make are important to understand if we want to optimize child development and maximize overall family health.”
The study had several limitations. It did not include information on some factors that could affect paternal testosterone levels, such as sleep disturbance, childcare involvement, and whether partners were married. Researchers only collected testosterone on 1 day, which would have missed variations over time. Relationship satisfaction was only measured at 9 months, and intimate partner aggression and parenting stress were measured at 15 months. Ideally, these factors would have been assessed multiple times. Finally, 95% of partners were cohabiting, so the study could not evaluate partners who did not live together.
The authors and Dr Garfield have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
Hormones Behav. 2017;95:103-112. Full text
For more news, join us on Facebook and Twitter
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar