Mood disorders in pregnant women with thyroid dysfunction

Both mood disorders and thyroid dysfunction are common in pregnancy and the postpartum period and have significant short and long-term implications to the mothers and their infants. Thyroid hormones have a multitude of effects on the central nervous system, undergo significant changes during pregnancy, and it is now widely recognized that disturbances of mood and cognition often emerge in association with putative disturbance of thyroid metabolism in the brain. Several small studies have shown associations between clinical and subclinical thyroid dysfunction and depression during pregnancy or the postpartum period. Unfortunately, this relationship between maternal thyroid dysfunction and perinatal depression is not well studied.