Important new data, and good news that the mainstream media is sharing it with the broader public!

A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has drawn a deluge of media attention this week, with coverage from Time Magazine, CNN, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, MSNBC, and many others.

The study, which is based on data from over two million people in the Danish health and civil service registers, finds that first-time mothers are at an increased risk for a host of mental health disorders that include but also go far beyond postpartum depression - anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia - with the greatest risk during the first three months after childbirth.

They also found that first-time childbearing women had a risk of postpartum mental illness at a rate 7.3 times higher than for women who had given birth previously.

The study found postpartum depression affecting 10 to 15 percent of all mothers, but the team also notes that this data is an "underestimate," given the fact that approximately 40 to 50 percent of postpartum mental illness goes undiagnosed.

At least one previous study found that some new fathers also suffer from depression after a child is born, but the current JAMA study argues against any association between fatherhood and the onset of mental illness.

Also published in this edition of JAMA: a group-authored editorial, "Postpartum Depression: A Major Public Health Problem."