A prospective study of postpartum psychoses in a high-risk group. 1. Clinical characteristics of the current postpartum episodes.

Postpartum psychotic episodes (PPPs) occurring during the first 6 months after delivery were prospectively studied in 88 pregnant index women with a history of nonorganic psychosis and 104 pregnant controls with no such history. While no control developed a PPP, PPPs were found following 28% of the index deliveries, almost all of these 25 cases being psychiatrically hospitalized. PPPs were especially frequent among cases with total illness diagnoses of Cycloid Psychosis and Affective Illness. More than half of the 25 cases had symptom onset within 3 weeks of delivery, and these early onset cases represented predominantly affective disorders, many of whom were manic in this episode. Cases with onset after 3 weeks were predominantly schizophrenic. Confusion was part of the current episode symptomatology in about one third of the cases and was well distributed across the different diagnostic groups.