Mom Genes Fight PPD A study to understand the causes of postpartum depression. Get the app

Postpartum depression (PPD), is one of the most common complications of childbirth, and yet much remains unknown about this condition. Approximately one in seven women experience PPD and some of its most devastating consequences include maternal suicide, infanticide, and reduced maternal sensitivity leading to adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes for the child.

This led UNC School of Medicine to create Mom Genes Fight PPD (formerly PPD ACT), an iOS app they used to recruit, consent, screen, and enable DNA collection from women with a lifetime history of PPD. Mom Genes Fight PPD was designed to understand why some women are afflicted with postpartum depression and others aren’t based on genetics.

“We were able to use ResearchKit to bring PPD research to a much larger population compared to traditional studies that require participants to visit specific research centers.” — Quote by Samantha Meltzer-Brody, MD, MPH

Since its launch, the app has reached over 17,000 downloads enabling the team to tap into a huge participant population and collect approximately 4,000 genetic samples. The scale of the study also drove genome-wide association studies.

Now, UNC researchers are able to accurately determine reliability of which childbirth preceded the worst episode, participant's age at the worst episode, and duration of the worst episode in a cohort larger than any studied previously. The scale of the study, and the number of participants recruited has the team at UNC hopeful that they are well on their way to understanding the genetic signature of postpartum mood disorders. This critical knowledge will improve detection, prevention, and treatment of postpartum depression.