have about 13 studies described the symptoms of postpartum psychosis, including cognitive ones?
“there's about 13 studies that have been, yeah, that have been completed, which describe all of the symptoms.”
a guest, a psychiatrist said on Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast, 2026-09-26, at 27:12. hear it in context →
the episode: Postpartum Psychosis: Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention with Dr. Margaret Spinelli (at 27:12). we link the show's own page; we do not re-host audio.
first, the part that holds
cognitive impairment is a documented, common symptom of postpartum psychosis. a 2025 expert consensus review lists impaired cognition alongside mania, mixed states and psychotic depression, and the research base is small enough that a count in the low teens is plausible for some slice of it.
what we found when we went and looked
we found no review, registry or paper in the primary record that says about 13 completed studies describe the symptoms of postpartum psychosis, and the speaker named no source. the closest count we found is a 2024 mini review in frontiers in psychiatry that kept 14 empirical studies out of 133 records. those studies covered hormones, psychotic disorders and cognition across pregnancy and the postpartum period, and most enrolled women at risk rather than women diagnosed with postpartum psychosis. that review also found no study at all on hormones and cognition in diagnosed cases. the symptom picture itself comes from a wider literature that no one we read has counted at 13: narrative reviews cite a 130-woman cohort that split into manic (34%), depressive (41%) and delirium-like (25%) profiles, and a 2024 study described itself as the first neuropsychological testing of women at risk of postpartum psychosis.
assertion by assertion
| assertion | verdict | what the record says |
|---|---|---|
| about 13 studies have been completed that describe the symptoms of postpartum psychosis | unverifiable | no source was named, and none of the reviews we read (a 2021 narrative review in brain sciences, a 2024 narrative review in focus, the 2025 expert consensus review in biological psychiatry) gives a count of symptom studies. without a definition of 'study' (case series, cohort, cognitive testing), the number can't be checked against the record. [2][3][4] |
| cognitive impairment is among the symptoms of postpartum psychosis described in the literature | confirmed | the 2025 consensus review abstract says 'impaired cognition, irritability, and agitation are also common.' the 2024 focus review calls the delirium-like picture (confusion, disorientation, derealization, depersonalization) the most distinctive clinical feature. the 2021 review lists perplexity, meaning extreme confusion, as common. [2][3][4] |
| the nearest published count (14 studies) is a count of studies describing postpartum psychosis symptoms | misattributed | the 2024 frontiers mini review kept 14 of 133 studies, but its question was hormones, psychotic disorders and cognition across the whole perinatal period, and most samples were women at risk, not women diagnosed with postpartum psychosis. it reports: 'No studies reported about the role of hormones in cognition in women with clinically diagnosed PPD.' we don't know that the speaker was drawing on this review. this row covers one way the number could have been reached. [1] |
| formal cognitive testing in postpartum psychosis is a well-studied area | false | a 2024 archives of women's mental health study of 144 pregnant women (43 at risk of postpartum psychosis) states that cognitive performance in women at risk of postpartum psychosis during pregnancy and the perinatal period 'has not been examined so far' and calls itself the first such investigation. it found worse executive function and processing speed in the at-risk group. this is a popular framing, not the speaker's words. [5] |
| the symptom picture rests on a small number of mostly modest-sized studies | confirmed | the 2024 focus review describes the largest phenotype cohort as 130 women, with manic (34%), depressive (41%) and atypical delirium-like (25%) profiles. it also says the literature on postpartum psychosis is limited. that supports the spirit of 'a small evidence base', though not the figure 13. [2] |
both directions
for the speaker: the core content checks out. impaired cognition, confusion and a delirium-like presentation are named as common or distinctive features in a 2025 expert consensus review, a 2024 clinical review and a 2021 review. the broader point that the evidence base is small also holds: the largest phenotype cohort we found is 130 women, and a systematic search of the perinatal psychosis and cognition literature through june 2023 kept only 14 empirical studies. a count of about 13 for some defined subset is believable.
against: no reviewed source gives the figure 13, and the speaker named none. the one near-match, 14 studies, is a count for a different question (hormones and cognition across perinatal psychotic disorders, mostly at-risk women), and that review found zero studies on hormones and cognition in diagnosed postpartum psychosis. on cognitive testing in particular, a 2024 paper describes itself as the first neuropsychological study of women at risk, so the formal cognition literature looks thinner than 13. the clinical symptom literature, counting case series and cohorts going back decades, is likely larger than 13.
what this cannot say
we didn't run our own systematic search, and two relevant full texts were out of reach: the full biological psychiatry consensus review blocked our fetch, so we read only its abstract on pubmed, and we didn't read the fmri study of working memory in postpartum psychosis. a count of 13 could exist in a source we didn't find, such as a conference talk, a review in press or the speaker's own tally, and that would change this row. 'studies that describe the symptoms' has no fixed definition, so any count depends on inclusion rules the speaker didn't state.
sources, each one fetched and read
- Hormones, psychotic disorders, and cognition in perinatal women: a mini review. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2024. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1296638 What we read there: "A total of 133 studies were found, and 14 empirical studies met the inclusion criteria." Most samples were women at risk. "No studies reported about the role of hormones in cognition in women with clinically diagnosed PPD." Fetched 2026-10-31 (HTTP 200). https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1296638/full
- Postpartum psychosis: a preventable psychiatric emergency. Focus (American Psychiatric Association Publishing), 2024. doi:10.1176/appi.focus.20230025 What we read there: "In the largest cohort study of the phenotype of postpartum psychosis, 130 women were found to have three symptom profiles: manic (34%), depressive (41%), and atypical (delirium-like) (25%)." Also: the most distinctive feature is its delirium-like appearance, with confusion, disorientation, derealization and depersonalization. Narrative review, no count of symptom studies. Fetched 2026-10-31 (HTTP 200). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11058913/
- Phenomenology, epidemiology and aetiology of postpartum psychosis: a review. Brain Sciences, 2021;11(1):47 What we read there: "depression, lability of mood, perplexity (extreme confusion) and anxiety are also common". Visual hallucinations and perplexity are reported more often in postpartum-onset episodes. Narrative review with no count of symptom studies. Fetched 2026-10-31 (HTTP 200). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7824357/
- Postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder: review of neurobiology and expert consensus statement on classification. Biological Psychiatry, 2026 (epub October 2025). PMID 41135771 What we read there: "Most women with PP experience severe mood symptoms, including mania, mixed episodes, or depression with psychotic features. Impaired cognition, irritability, and agitation are also common." The abstract gives no count of studies. Fetched 2026-10-31 (HTTP 203). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41135771/
- Neuropsychological performance in women at risk of postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. Archives of Women's Mental Health, 2024. doi:10.1007/s00737-024-01510-9 What we read there: 144 pregnant women (43 at risk of postpartum psychosis). "To the best of our knowledge, cognitive performance in women at risk of PP during pregnancy and the perinatal period has not been examined so far." Women at risk of postpartum psychosis showed worse executive function and processing speed than controls. Fetched 2026-10-31 (HTTP 200). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11762223/
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