Prenatal Test for Depression

George, unanimously the favorite sibling

Depression hurts.  Physically and emotionally.  It is a major cause of family stress, social alienation, health problems and inability to function at work.   The National Institute of Mental health  says that the lifetime incidence of depression  – serious depression – among Americans is 16.5%.  It’s important to understand the different statistics here.  This means that if you take 1000 babies,  follow them along their whole lives, and keep track of things, at the end of their lives 165 of them will have suffered from true depression.   Beyond that, at any given moment, only about one third of Americans would consider themselves very happy. 

Eliza, who is happy and loved.

 Depression causes unquantifiable agony and has an economic impact in the billions of dollar range.  (yes, billions.   83.1 billion dollars in 2000, for example. Of the 2000 total, 26.1 billion dollars (31%) were direct medical costs, 5.4 billion dollars (7%) were suicide-related mortality costs, and 51.5 billion dollars (62%) were workplace costs).

 

Verity, at very low risk of ever being depressed.

 

 And it’s not just sadness.  People with depression have physical pain, too.  Depression is well documented to cause headaches, back pain, muscle pain, chest pain, digestive problems…   And depression has huge impacts on families.  I heard someone explain that living with a depressed person was like living with a black hole.  They just suck all the positive energy out of everything.

 

Lily, who is the most likely of her siblings to have a lifetime of happiness.

 I am absolutely, totally pro-life.  So I was very interested to read this week about a new DNA test that is going to be available to pregnant women in just a few months.  If this test, done with a sample of blood from a pregnant mother, is positive, there is a 99 % chance that her baby will be happy.  Remember than 16.5 % lifetime incidence of depression?  If this prenatal DNA test is positive, that rate falls to less than 7 %, probably much less, especially for boys. 

 

Nella, whose own happiness brings joy to so many other people.

 But the burdens this test places upon mothers is tremendous.  What if a mother gets a negative result?  Early in pregnancy, she knows that her child may not be spared the grief and difficulties of this suffering.  Depression causes suffering, it’s undeniable. 

Have you opened a new tab yet to google this new prenatal test for depression?  You will actually have to open two new pages and put two different studies together to learn how it works. 

First go here:  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajmg.a.v155.10/issuetoc  (if you are a formal journal reading type of person) or if you prefer the blog version, you can go here:  http://www.brianskotko.com/index.php/blog

Both of those links are about happiness.  And more good stuff.  Totally amazingly good.  

And here is the link to the company, called Sequenom, who invented the new test:  http://www.sequenomcmm.com/home/patients/trisomy-21/

I can hear you way over here in my kitchen.  “Wait a minute!  That’s not a prenatal test for depression, that’s a Down Syndrome test!  I read about that!  They said it was great because now women don’t have to worry about risking a “normal” pregnancy by having an amniocentesis!”

Take a minute and think about it.  People with Down Syndrome are happier than the rest of us, and their families are thriving.  If you want footnotes about the rest of the mental health statistics, email me and I’ll send them along.  I am obviously very biased, as a passionately pro-life mama who has had two babies with Trisomy 21.  But I think if I had a positive prenatal test that could assure me that my baby would grow up liking himself, not an emotional burden to his siblings, at very low risk for depression… I’d be OK with that.  How about you?

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