CNN (2/8, Kaur) reported a study published in Anesthesia and Analgesia suggests “women who have general anesthesia during C-sections are significantly more likely to experience severe post-partum depression resulting in hospitalization, suicidal thoughts or self-harm.” The study examined over 400,000 cases of cesarean delivery from 2006 to 2013 and showed 8% received general anesthesia during the procedure. Among those women, 3% “experienced severe postpartum depression that required hospitalization.” Moreover, they “were also 54% more likely to experience postpartum depression and 91% more likely to have thoughts about suicide or self-harm, compared to those who had regional anesthesia such as spinal blocks or epidurals.”

Related Links:

— “Women who have general anesthesia during C-sections are more likely to experience postpartum depression, study finds, “Harmeet Kaur, CNN, February 8, 2020

The AP (2/8, Burns) reported researchers found that “suicides in the active-duty Air Force surged last year to the highest total in at least three decades, even as the other military services saw their numbers stabilize or decline.” The article added, “The reasons for the Air Force increase are not fully understood, coming after years of effort by all of the military services to counter a problem that seems to defy solution and that parallels increases in suicide in the U.S. civilian population.”

Related Links:

— “Air Force suicides surged last year to highest in 3 decades, “Robert Burns, AP, February 8, 2020

MedPage Today (2/7, George) reported researchers found that “people who had three or more adverse childhood experiences – physical or psychological abuse, family psychopathology, or loss of a parent – had twice the risk of developing dementia in later years as other older adults, even after taking into account economic hardship, demographics, education, and nutritional environment.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open

Related Links:

— “Adverse Childhood Events Tied to Dementia, “Judy George, MedPage Today, February 7, 2020

Psychiatric News (2/7) reported, “Family conflict and low parental supervision are associated with suicidality in children, according to a study published today in JAMA Network Open.” The research showed that “overall, 6.4% of the children had a lifetime history of passive suicidal ideation; 4.4% had nonspecific active suicidal ideation; 2.4% had active ideation with a method, intent, or plan; 1.3% had a past suicide attempts; and 9.1% had a NSSI.”

Healio (2/7) reported that “according to the researchers, little is known about suicidal behaviors and ideation in children,” and “to address this research gap, they assessed the overall prevalence of suicide attempts, suicidal ideation and nonsuicidal self-injury, as well as family-related factors associated with self-injury and suicidality, among 11,814 participants aged 9 to 10 years of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study.”

Medscape (2/7, Swift, Subscription Publication) also reported.

Related Links:

— “Family Conflict, Low Parental Supervision Risk Factors for Suicidality in Children, Study Finds, Psychiatric News, February 7, 2020

Reuters (2/6, Rapaport) reports a study published in The BMJ suggests that “the top 1% of opioid prescribers in the U.S. are responsible for 49% of all opioid doses and 27% of all prescriptions.” Researchers “examined data on 8.9 million opioid prescriptions for 3.9 million patients from 2003 to 2017, based on records from an average of 669,495 providers each year,” and found that “by 2017, the top 1% of providers prescribed a yearly average of 748,000 ‘morphine-milligram equivalents’ (MMEs), a standardized way of describing doses of different types of opioids,” which “was roughly 1,000 times more than the providers in the middle percentiles.”

Related Links:

— “Just a few hundred prescribers responsible for half of U.S. opioid doses, “Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, February 6, 2020