More than one in 10 pregnant women smoke, and new research suggests many of them also may suffer from depression, making kicking the habit even harder.

The emerging science suggests that decades-old "quit for your baby" messages are too simplistic an approach for many women — and that perhaps prenatal checkups should include screening pregnant smokers for mental health disorders that themselves require care.

"These ladies all know, I promise you, about the health risks. That's not what it is," says Dr. Jan Blalock of the University of Texas M.D Anderson Cancer Center, which has begun a first-of-a-kind study, Project Baby Steps, to test whether non-drug depression therapy helps pregnant smokers quit.

Half of all people with advanced or terminal cancer suffer from depression, anxiety or adjustment disorders and could use their oncologist's help getting treatment, according to a new study.

Physicians treating the cancer can screen for the mental disorders, but the most valuable screening tool is simply listening, the researchers said.

A team from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston reviewed published literature about psychiatric illness in cancer patients. They found that 50 percent or more of patients with advanced or terminal cancer are suffering from anxiety, depression or an adjustment disorder for which doctors can screen.

In a finding that is likely to revive a debate of many years about the safety of drugs prescribed for depression, health officials reported yesterday that the rate of suicide in Americans ages 10 to 24 increased 8 percent from 2003 to 2004, the largest jump in more than 15 years.

Some psychiatrists argue that the reason for the increase is the decline in prescriptions of antidepressant drugs like Prozac to young people since 2003, leaving more cases of serious depression untreated. Others say that it is impossible to know if the increase is linked to patterns of antidepressant prescriptions. The one-year spike in suicides could be a statistical fluctuation, they say, and not the start of a trend.

The increase was particularly sharp among adolescents, especially girls, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which released the figures yesterday. The timing of the increase coincided with a public debate in the United States and overseas over whether the antidepressants increased the risk of suicide in a small percentage of young people who took them. In late 2004, after public hearings, the Food and Drug Administration called for drug makers to put a prominent “blackbox” warning on the drugs’ labels, cautioning about the possibility of increased suicide risk in minors.

I share these two entries about mental health issues in school settings - this one about high school and the next about college - as an opportunity to open up the dialogue for teens and young adults that will soon be either returning to high school or beginning college.

I went through high school and college with undiagnosed depression, anxiety and PTSD. I was an overly stressed-out person, and it is only in hindsight that I see my missed opportunities and close calls. My good decisions occurred only through sheer happenstance or by default. Perhaps by sharing an "inside look" at my experience, I may support those teens and young adults who are still in school and coping with mental health issues, and help them to make good decisions with forethought.