Postpartum depression is a common and often devastating condition for new mothers, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved the first drug to help combat it. The drug, Zulesso (brexanolone), is delivered via intravenous infusion. “Postpartum depression is a serious condition that, when severe, can be life-threatening,” noted the FDA’s Dr. Tiffany Farchione. “Women may experience thoughts about harming themselves or harming their child.” The condition “can also interfere with the maternal-infant bond,” added Farchione, who is acting director of the Division of Psychiatry Products in the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. The FDA decision “marks the first time a drug has been specifically approved to treat postpartum depression, providing an important new treatment option,” she said in an agency statement. Psychiatrist Dr. Martha Wald agreed that women battling postpartum depression have long needed new options. “There is tremendous stigma around postpartum depression for women,” said Wald, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst at Duke University, in Winston-Salem, N.C. “Many women experience great shame and feel inadequate as mothers if they struggle with depression at a time that is supposed to be joyous.” “Because of this stigma, many women choose to not seek help and endure great suffering in silence,” she said. “Postpartum depression affects 15 to 20 percent of the general population, and at least half of this group goes untreated.…  read on >

Sperm DNA from the testicles of infertile men is often as good as that of ejaculated sperm from fertile men, according to European researchers — a finding that could lead to new treatments for male infertility. The study shows that on its path from the testicles to ejaculation, sperm DNA can suffer major damage. Researchers said it may be possible to use sperm taken directly from the testicles to fertilize eggs so that infertile men can have children. The study was presented Sunday at the European Association of Urology Congress, in Barcelona, Spain. Research presented at meetings is typically considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. The investigators took sperm samples from the testicles of 63 infertile men and compared them with ejaculated sperm from the same men. They also analyzed ejaculate from 76 fertile men. “When we looked at ejaculated sperm, we found that the extent of sperm DNA damage was much higher in infertile men than in fertile men, with roughly 15 percent in fertile men, but 40 percent in infertile men,” said study author Dr. Jonathan Ramsay, a consultant urologist at Imperial College London. He said it wasn’t surprising to see more DNA damage in ejaculates of infertile men. “What we didn’t expect was the consistency in these results when we looked at sperm taken directly from the testicles of infertile…  read on >

For women who need relief from bladder control problems, behavioral therapies are a better bet than medication, a new research review finds. In an analysis of 84 clinical trials, researchers found that overall, women were better off with behavioral approaches to easing urinary incontinence than relying on medication. Study patients were over five times more likely to see their symptoms improve with behavioral therapy, compared with no treatment. Medication also helped, but not as much. Women treated with drugs alone were twice as likely to improve, compared to doing nothing. “I think women with urinary incontinence should be encouraged to seek treatment,” said senior researcher Dr. Peter Jeppson, a urogynecologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. “There are a variety of treatment options, almost all of which are better than doing nothing,” Jeppson said. The findings were published online March 18 in Annals of Internal Medicine. Almost half of women have problems with urine leakage at some point in their lives, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. And while men develop urinary incontinence, too, it’s more common among women, often arising during or after pregnancy, or after menopause. The good news is, lifestyle changes often help, said Dr. Brian Stork. He’s a urologist and assistant clinical professor at Michigan Medicine West Shore Urology in Muskegon, Mich. Stork, who is also a…  read on >