Long-term outcome of postpartum psychosis: a prospective clinical cohort study in 106 women.

For the majority of women with first-onset postpartum psychosis, the risk of illness was limited to the period after childbirth. For the remaining women, postpartum psychosis was part of a mood/psychotic disorder with severe non-postpartum recurrence, mainly in the bipolar spectrum. No clinical predictors for risk of severe episodes outside the postpartum period emerged. Our findings add to previous evidence suggesting a fundamental link between postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder, which may represent two distinct diagnoses within the same spectrum.