Depression after childbirth affects about one in 10 women. This type of depression has a great impact on the mother, but can also affect the development of the child. It is therefore important to identify possible depression at an early stage. Mothers who have just given birth often find it difficult to talk about their symptoms of depression, and even healthcare professionals often do not recognize such depressions. University of Twente Ph.D. candidate and child healthcare physician Angarath van der Zee conducted research on how Preventive Child Healthcare (PCHC) centers could improve the detection of depressions. Van der Zee says: “My study showed that much is to be gained by early detection by PCHC. The number of mothers experiencing depression at nine months postpartum has decreased by up to a third.”