Free EPDS — Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale Online

Your EPDS score in context

The EPDS is a snapshot of how the past 7 days have felt across ten specific perinatal mental-health items, not a fixed measurement of your parenting, your relationship with the baby, or who you are as a parent. The perinatal window is mental-health-dynamic — pregnancy, the immediate postpartum period, and the first year after birth come with hormonal, sleep, identity, and life-circumstance changes that can shift mental-health screens substantially across weeks. A score on a single administration tells you about this week; a pattern across serial administrations tells you about a trajectory. Standard perinatal-screening practice repeats the EPDS at the 6-week postpartum visit and across well-baby visits in the first 6–12 months specifically because the trajectory matters more than any single number.

One distinction worth pinning down: the EPDS measures self-reported mood, anhedonia, anxiety, self-blame, coping, sadness, tearfulness, and the specific item-10 self-harm thought across the past 7 days. It deliberately avoids the somatic depression symptoms (fatigue, appetite change, sleep disruption) that the PHQ-9 and other general depression screens include, because those somatic items have low specificity in the perinatal window — almost every new parent is tired and has disrupted sleep, and weight and appetite changes are part of normal pregnancy and postpartum recovery. That design choice is one of the reasons the EPDS performs better than general depression screens for perinatal-depression detection: it captures the mood-specific signal without being noisy from normal perinatal physiology.

On the Cox 1987 cutoffs: the original development study reported that a cutoff of 10/11 (a score of 10 or above) carried approximately 86% sensitivity and 78% specificity for major depression in the early postpartum window, and a cutoff of 13 carried approximately 95% specificity at the cost of some sensitivity. Both cutoffs are widely reproduced in research and clinical practice. The two thresholds map onto a clinical decision: 10–12 indicates a conversation belongs on the calendar within 1–2 weeks; 13+ indicates that prompt evaluation and treatment planning belong on the calendar this week. Item 10 sits outside the total: any response above "Never" warrants a safety conversation regardless of where the total lands.

When you retake the EPDS, the change is more informative than any single number. The EPDS does not have a formally established minimum clinically important difference (MCID); Murray and Carothers 1990 reported that a 4-point change is generally considered clinically meaningful, but this is not a formal MCID. Progress is best described in terms of band-shift (likely → possible, possible → low) or sustained directional change across several administrations rather than a fixed point-change threshold. The EPDS was designed for repeated administration in the perinatal window — every 4–6 weeks is a reasonable cadence if you are tracking on your own; perinatal clinicians often re-administer at scheduled visits. If you are working with a perinatal clinician, they will typically look at EPDS scores across multiple administrations rather than making decisions off a single result.

How to bring this to a perinatal clinician

The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale is the most widely used perinatal depression screen worldwide and is recommended by ACOG, the AAP, the US Preventive Services Task Force, NICE, and the WHO. Most perinatal clinicians — OB-GYNs, midwives, pediatricians (the AAP recommends pediatricians screen for maternal depression at well-baby visits), family physicians, and perinatal mental-health specialists — will recognize the EPDS by name or by format. You do not need to explain the instrument in detail; bringing the score gives the conversation a concrete starting point that descriptions of perinatal mental health otherwise lack, because perinatal-depression symptoms are often hard to articulate ("I should be happier than this" is not a precise complaint), particularly during the cognitive and emotional load of pregnancy or new parenthood.

What to bring:

• The total score on the 0–30 EPDS scale (the number shown on your result above)
• Which items felt heaviest — the item pattern often tells a clinician about whether the picture is more about anhedonia (items 1–2), self-blame (item 3), anxiety (items 4–5), coping (item 6), or sadness and tearfulness (items 7–9), each of which sometimes calls for slightly different first-line treatment focus
• How long the picture at this level has been present (best guess in weeks) — perinatal depression can emerge during pregnancy, in the immediate postpartum period, or across the first year, and the timing matters
• Whether you are pregnant or postpartum, and at what gestational age or how many weeks postpartum
• Item 10 — be ready to talk about it specifically. Clinicians at this band ask about item 10 directly; preparing yourself to answer is reasonable even if the answer is "Never"
• Whether bonding with the baby feels intact, blocked, missing, or alarming — perinatal-OCD intrusive thoughts about the baby are common, treatable, and often missed when not asked about directly
• Whether you are breastfeeding, if relevant — breastfeeding plans can affect medication choice but are rarely a barrier to treatment
• Personal or family history of mood, anxiety, OCD, or psychotic disorders — particularly bipolar disorder, because postpartum mood episodes can present as depression and later shift; raising this changes the treatment plan
• Any birth-related trauma (traumatic delivery, NICU course, obstetric emergency, dehumanizing or coercive care, perinatal loss) — perinatal trauma commonly co-occurs with depression and warrants its own attention
• What support you currently have (partner, family, friends, peer-parent contacts, paid support) and what you specifically need help with
• Any current perinatal psychiatric medication — do not stop or change without a clinical conversation

A two-line opening you can use as-is:

I took the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale at home and scored [X] on the 0–30 scale, which is at or above the Cox 1987 cutoff of [10 or 13]. The items that felt heaviest were [item descriptions]. I'd like to talk about what to do next.

A perinatal clinician will commonly follow up by taking a structured perinatal mental-health history (symptoms, duration, prior episodes, psychiatric history, current treatment, family history, current support, breastfeeding plans), screening for conditions the EPDS does not directly capture (perinatal anxiety, perinatal-onset OCD, birth-related post-traumatic responses, postpartum thyroid disease, postpartum anemia), assessing impact on functioning, bonding, and self-care, and discussing item 10 specifically. They may also check labs (TSH, free T4, hemoglobin in some cases) and review any current medications. Treatment options will be discussed and individualized to the picture; first-line treatment for perinatal depression at moderate or higher severity typically includes psychotherapy (CBT or IPT have strong perinatal-specific evidence), peer support (Postpartum Support International runs free online groups), and in many cases pharmacotherapy with perinatal-compatible agents under clinical guidance. You can print this page or save it as PDF using your browser's print menu — the result, score, and item pattern all carry through.

If you're reading this with someone in the perinatal window

If you are a partner, parent, sibling, close friend, doula, or other support person reading this result alongside someone who is pregnant or postpartum, this section is addressed to you. Perinatal mental-health symptoms are often quietly carried — by the time someone takes an EPDS, they may have been managing the picture for weeks or months without making it fully visible to the people around them. Cultural narratives that frame pregnancy and new parenthood as universally joyful make it especially hard to describe perinatal depression to anyone, including a partner. The score gives you a concrete starting point for a conversation that can otherwise be hard to begin. Ask them directly what they want from you before drawing your own conclusions from the number.

Three things that consistently help: showing up steady and present, without trying to fix the perinatal mental-health picture or explain it away with normalizing it. Perinatal depression does not respond to "every new parent feels this way," "you'll feel better when the baby sleeps through the night," or "have you tried [obvious wellness suggestion]" even when those statements are well-intentioned; they tend to land as dismissive of the actual lived experience. Practical help with the perinatal logistics that depression has made harder — taking the night feed if you are bottle-feeding or pumping, handling household tasks that have backed up, watching the baby for a few hours so the parent can sleep or be alone, driving them to appointments, picking up groceries or prescriptions, cooking a meal, holding the baby during a particularly hard hour — often meets the moment in a way words cannot, because perinatal depression directly compresses the daily capacity that perinatal logistics demand. And asking calmly what kind of support feels most useful right now: a quiet presence, help thinking through a specific decision (which clinician to call first, whether to start a medication, what to ask the pediatrician), or just knowing you are available.

Three things that tend not to help: minimizing the perinatal mental-health picture ("the baby blues are normal," "hormones will settle in a few weeks," "new parenthood is just hard") — the baby blues are a distinct, time-limited postpartum mood shift in the first 1–2 weeks, and what the EPDS detects is not the baby blues; offering have-you-tried suggestions for sleep training methods, breastfeeding adjustments, supplements, apps, or specific therapies that the parent has almost certainly already considered or tried; and pressing them to make big decisions about feeding, parenting style, the relationship, returning to work, or the household structure in the moment, when capacity is already compressed by the depression itself. Most parents in the possible- or likely-depression EPDS band have spent considerable mental energy on their own perinatal picture; the help that lands tends to be smaller, more concrete, more present, and less prescriptive than the help that tries to fix the whole picture.

Things you may have noticed that the parent cannot self-observe: changes in eating, sleeping when the baby sleeps, time spent on the phone or withdrawing from contact, irritability or rage that feels disproportionate, expressions of hopelessness or worthlessness in passing, changes in how they hold or talk about the baby. These are valuable observations precisely because they are hard to self-track during perinatal depression. Sharing them — calmly, factually, not as a diagnosis — with the parent and, if possible, with their clinician shortens the path to a useful conversation. Perinatal depression in partners and non-birthing parents (sometimes called paternal perinatal depression) is also recognized and often missed; if you are the partner reading this, your own perinatal mental-health screen is worth considering, because the literature documents elevated depression risk in both members of a perinatal couple.

One situation calls for specific care: if they mention thoughts of self-harm — even passively (not wanting to be here, wishing they could just stop, thoughts that the baby would be better off without them) — that is information to take seriously rather than redirect away from. Maternal suicide is a leading cause of perinatal mortality in high-income countries; perinatal-specific crisis lines exist precisely because this is a known clinical risk. The most useful response is to stay calm, ask gently whether they have any specific plans or means, and help them connect with support today: suggest they call or text 988 (US Suicide and Crisis Lifeline) or 1-833-852-6262 (National Maternal Mental Health Hotline, perinatal-trained counselors, 24/7) while you sit with them, or call 1-800-944-4773 (Postpartum Support International). If they feel unsafe or you feel they may not stay safe, an emergency department visit is appropriate. Asking about suicidal thoughts does not put the idea in someone's head; it makes it possible for them to talk about something they may have been carrying alone. Similarly, intrusive thoughts about harming the baby — often experienced by parents as alien, disturbing, and ego-dystonic, distinct from intent — are a recognizable feature of perinatal-onset OCD; they are treatable and not predictive of harm, but they warrant urgent perinatal-mental-health evaluation rather than being kept secret. The EPDS does not directly screen for perinatal psychosis (hallucinations, paranoid thoughts, beliefs others around the parent do not share, extreme mood elevation), which is a rare but acute psychiatric emergency requiring immediate evaluation, often in an emergency department.

If the perinatal mental-health picture has reached a point where it is meaningfully compressing daily life — bonding affected, basic self-care slipping, the parent withdrawing from contact, expressions of hopelessness — helping them schedule and keep the first clinical appointment is one of the most concrete, high-leverage things you can do. Getting to the room (or to the telehealth visit) is often the hardest single step in perinatal depression, because the depression itself compresses the bandwidth required to handle logistics, and shame about reaching out is one of the strongest perinatal-specific barriers in research literature.

Other screens you might also take

The EPDS is a perinatal-specific depression screen — a focused 10-item view of the past 7 days, deliberately calibrated to detect perinatal depression while avoiding the somatic items that overlap with normal perinatal physiology. Several patterns commonly co-occur with elevated EPDS scores in the perinatal window, and a more targeted second screen often clarifies the larger picture. The screens below are working tools that pair naturally with the EPDS for context, not as replacements.