Sara Evans had an idyllic pregnancy and was expecting the same after her son was born two years ago.

But instead, she couldn’t sleep and felt anxious and disconnected for months as she went through the motions of being a new mother.

“I thought I could will it away. I didn’t realize how I wasn’t thinking clearly,” said Evans, Maryland coordinator for Postpartum Support International.

Evans, 31, of Gaithersburg, was diagnosed with postpartum depression. After taking an antidepressant, she said she got her life back.

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About 15 percent of women suffer from postpartum depression — a disease often misunderstood, written off as “baby blues” or assumed to be the cause behind the high-profile cases of mothers killing their babies, health care officials say.

“It’s a fairly common phenomenon, but it’s not normal and it needs treatment,” said Dr. Jennifer Payne, co-director of the Women’s Mood Disorder Center at Johns Hopkins.

Now, researchers have made what many say is a promising discovery in mice that could lead to better treatment for postpartum depression.

Researchers genetically engineered mice to lack a protein in the brain’s inhibitory chemical messenger system.

Without that protein, the mice acted lethargic and ignored their pups, according to the research supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Postpartum depression results in sadness, irritability, a lack of energy, sleeplessness and suicidal and negative thoughts, Payne said.

The condition can also lead to behavior problems for babies, because mothers don’t bond and communicate with them, she said.

The mice’s behaviors were reversed when they were given a drug that makes that receptor work again, offering hope for treating postpartum mood disorders, said study author Jamie McGuire, a researcher at UCLA.

“We finally have a mouse model we can use to study postpartum depression, which has been a major limitation in the field until this point,” she said, adding more research needs to be done.

Katherine Stone, a board member of Postpartum Support International, said she was “cautiously optimistic” about the research.

“It’s very exciting, but at the same time, we all try to be cautious about being overexcited because there is so much that is unknown,” said Sloan, who suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of her son in 2001.

Research is increasing, but there is still a dearth of support groups and health care providers trained in how to recognize and treat it, she said.

“There are [diseases] much less prevalent than this that get a whole lot more attention, and that concerns me,” she said.

smichael@baltimoreexaminer.com