NEW YORK - The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the first pill for post-partum depression, a milestone considered likely to increase recognition and treatment of a debilitating condition that afflicts about half a million women in the United States every year.

Clinical trial data show the pill, zuranolone, works quickly, beginning to ease depression in as little as three days, significantly faster than general antidepressants, which can take two weeks or longer to have an effect.

That – along with the fact that it is taken for just two weeks, not for months – may encourage more patients to accept treatment, maternal mental health experts said.

The most significant aspect of the approval may not be the features of the drug, but that it is explicitly designated for post-partum depression.

Several doctors and other experts said that while there were other antidepressants that are effective in treating the condition, the availability of one specifically shown to address it could help reduce the stigma of post-partum depression by underscoring that it has biological underpinnings, and is not something women should blame themselves for.

The hope is that it will encourage more women to seek help and prompt more obstetricians and family doctors to screen for symptoms and suggest counseling or treatment.

“This is a patient population that just so often falls through the cracks,” said Dr Ruta Nunacs, a psychiatrist with the Centre for Women’s Mental Health at Massachusetts General Hospital.

“When women are told, ‘You have post-partum depression,’ it’s embarrassing, it is demeaning, it makes them feel like a bad mom.”

She added: “There’s also a lot of stigma about taking antidepressant medication, so that might make this treatment more appealing because it’s really a treatment specific for post-partum depression.”

An estimated 10 per cent to 15 per cent of women who give birth in the US experience depression during pregnancy or in the year afterward. The condition can be accompanied by intense anxiety, shame, guilt, impaired sleep, panic attacks and suicidal thoughts or attempts.

Zuranolone, which will be marketed under the brand name Zurzuvae, was developed by Sage Therapeutics, a Massachusetts company that produces it in partnership with Biogen. The companies have not announced a price for the pill. NYTIMES