The first PMAD, postpartum depression (PPD), is the more widely-recognized and researched of all of them. PPD is actually the most common complication of childbirth, affecting up to 20% of childbearing women. Of all the scary things you may have read about in your pregnancy books or heard about in childbirth class, like pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes, postpartum depression occurs more often.
The word postpartum means after birth, so PPD is depression that occurs in the period after giving birth. It can show up any time in the first 12 months after having a baby (or after having a miscarriage, a stillbirth, or an abortion, in fact). Most often, it rears its ugly head sometime between three and four months after the baby is born, but it wouldn’t be that unusual if it showed up earlier or later. Some moms just don’t recognize they have it until they get much further down the road and realize, now that their babies are sleeping through the night, they can’t continue to attribute all of their problems to sleep deprivation or new mom nerves. Also, it doesn’t matter how many babies you’ve had or which baby this is in the lineup. You can get it with your first, second or more, or with all of your babies or just one.
If you have PPD, you may be feeling:
* guilt and/or hopelessness
* lack of connection to your baby and/or feeling unable to care for the baby
* irritation or anger
* appetite and/or sleep disturbances (can’t eat? eating too much? can’t fall asleep? need to sleep all the time?)
* mood swings
* difficulty concentrating and making decisions
* possible thoughts of harming yourself or the baby
PPD is not the baby blues. The baby blues are not a PMAD, but rather a normal adjustment period most moms go through after the huge physical and emotional upheaval of giving birth. It usually goes away between three and five weeks postpartum. Lots of new moms explain away their PPD symptoms by just assuming they’ve got the baby blues, but if the symptoms haven’t gone away by the middle of the second month, and are getting worse or at least not getting better that’s probably not the case.
Women at a higher risk for getting PPD include:
* Single moms
* Teenage moms
* Military wives whose partners are deployed
* Women with unsupportive partners and unhealthy or even abusive relationships
* Low-income women
* Immigrant women
* Women who’ve recently gone through a major life event like a house move, divorce, job loss, death of close friend or family member, or went through major childhood trauma
* Women who had a traumatic childbirth, unexpected complications with the pregnancy or birth, trouble breastfeeding, delivered multiples and/or had babies with serious health problems or birth defects
* Women who’ve been through infertility treatments
* Women who are type “A” personalities or feel they have to be perfect moms
* Women with a history of depression or whose families have a history of depression
* Women who are more vulnerable to hormone fluctuations, for instance those with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD)
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Related posts:
- More About Postpartum Depresson
- Postpartum Depression
- Postpartum Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Postpartum Psychosis
- Postpartum Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
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