More than 5.4 million women in the United States suffer from postpartum depression each year, and almost half of those experienced symptoms after childbirth, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Symptoms can be many and varied, but the severity can vary, too. In the two years after giving birth, a woman can be at risk for a temporary and temporary as well as prolonged depression. Research into the benefits of a walk in the park or out on the town has largely been focused on reducing anxiety. But a new study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that walking did a good job of reducing depression symptoms in women who’d previously developed postpartum depression.
Led by Dr. Ahmed Mohsin, a UC Irvine researcher in the lab of David Weeks, Dr. Mohsin and his team of researchers followed 661 postpartum women, more than half of whom had experienced mild to moderate symptoms of depression and the rest of whom had not. The women entered the study through two nurse clinics and a postpartum support group and were informed that they were participating in a study examining the effects of walking. They were allowed to walk a specific number of steps and more walking, with no limit placed on the amount of time they could walk for a 45-minute walk. Researchers monitored their symptoms for 28 days and found that walking reduced symptoms of depression by about 36 percent, compared to a placebo. The walking group experienced fewer severe depressive symptoms compared to those taking the placebo (15 percent versus 29 percent), and they also experienced fewer symptoms of stress. (Without taking the placebo, 29 percent of the women took steps to release stress, compared to 13 percent of the women who took the placebo.) Walking wasn’t just good for women who’d developed postpartum depression symptoms. “Walking was found to reduce the severity of symptoms of depression among postpartum women with less severe symptoms of depression, regardless of whether they experienced high, intermediate or low depressive symptoms in the first couple weeks after giving birth,” Dr. Mohsin said in a statement.
This isn’t the first time a study has found a connection between walking and depression. One 2006 study of 865 women found that those who did walk for at least 30 minutes a day experienced fewer depressive symptoms than women who had fewer than 20 minutes of brisk exercise a day. And a report from the YWCA of the USA in 2013 studied 35,000 women who’d previously experienced clinical depression and found that those who walked regularly (at least 5 to 7.5 hours per week) had fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety and were less likely to become depressed than women who didn’t exercise regularly.
Read the full story at The Times of London.
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