In the past, new mothers were surrounded by a whole village of women who would help care for the woman and the baby.
Many times now, women are isolated with maybe the father present. And even then there are pressures to get back to work.
This isn’t to discount or minimize postpartum depression, but if we as a society set up people for failure which require them to take a pill to get better, maybe something needs to be rethought.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01650...
> Additionally, prevalence was significantly higher in women from low and middle income countries compared to women from high income countries (OR 1.8, 95% CI 1.4–2.2). The overall pooled prevalence was 11.9% of women during the perinatal period (95% CI 11.4–12.5).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_depression#Epidemio...
For example, in Malaysia, most people no longer live in villages but it's counted as a middle income country.
I don't know how we would have managed the little one in the first years just the two of us. It really does that a village to raise a child, literally and figuratively.
My daughter went to daycare at exactly 18 months, but it was quite a ride before that. I work for home so I was there for my family, but let's just say that my productivity was sacrificed to do that.
I have no idea how single parents manage it.
Social support is less important risk factor, while factors like marital satisfaction and partner's depression are more important. For women, adverse events such as loss of a loved one, husband's loss of job or serious economical issues seem to be important too (Escriba-Aguir et al. 2010).
This is also quite concordant with the fact that PPD is more common in less developed countries, as mentioned in another comment.