What Causes Postpartum Depression?

Many women experience extreme depression and anxiety after they give birth to a child.  The medical term for this is postpartum depression (PPD).

Unfortunately, PPD occurs when a woman should be enjoying the happiest moments of her life.  Postpartum depression has actually received a lot of attention since many celebrities have taken time to talk to the media about their own experiences with this condition and because there have been numerous horrendous crimes committed by mothers suffering from this condition.  Part of the problem stems from the fact that many women are actually scared to tell anyone about how they are feeling, so it is necessary that the public receive more education on this topic. 

Postpartum depression is accompanied by numerous symptoms that are as varied as the women who have this condition are.  Each patient may actually show only a few of these symptoms.  These symptoms have to be present for the majority of time throughout the day, for a minimum of two weeks.  The symptoms that are most commonly associated with this disorder include:

• An overall feeling of depression.
• Crying.
• Feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy.
• A change in appetite because eating becomes difficult to do.  Some women actually start to eat more for no explainable reason.
• Activities that use to be enjoyable will not be enjoyable any longer.
• Extreme, uncontrollable anxiety and fatigue.
• No desire to take care of the newborn baby. 
• Feelings of disconnectedness and apathy toward the newborn baby.
• Thoughts of hurting the newborn baby.

The cause of postpartum depression is the change in hormones that a woman undergoes after her pregnancy.  While it is normal to for women to experience the blues after childbirth, if their family or spouse is not supportive it can become even worse.

Postpartum depression is a difficult condition to treat because the majority of women will not even seek treatment. This is because most of these symptoms will usually occur after childbirth anyway, so women find it difficult to see when these things become problematic.    For this very reason, spouses and other family members need to keep a close eye on new mothers.  They can then tell when it is necessary to step in and seek help for the new mother. 

There are two treatments for postpartum depression.  The first treatment consists of setting up professional counseling for the woman.  Then the counselor will then be able to teach the woman ways in which they can deal with the anxiety that they are experiencing.  The second form of treatment consists of placing the woman on antidepressants and also placing her in counseling.  This is usually done whenever the case is quite severe as the antidepressants will alleviate the woman's outward symptoms so that she can work with a counselor on easing her anxiety. 

Regardless of what symptoms or treatment are used for treating a woman's postpartum depression, the most important thing is that the woman knows that she will get better.  She simply has to seek the right treatment so that she can start enjoying motherhood.