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Pregnancy/Baby
Postpartum Depression Can Affect Any New Mother
By Susan Detrick-Atchley
June/July 2002
I seemed OK, despite being sleep
deprived and having some seriously bad hair days. The baby was about
six weeks old, sweet and calm, unlike my first child. I was holding
my son on my lap when my husband looked in my eyes and said "Something's
wrong." He was right. Everything was fine, and I loved our
new baby fiercely, but the rest of the world had gone completely
flat. It was as if someone had turned off a switch in my heart,
and while I knew what I should be feeling, I wasn't actually feeling
much besides sadness.
I think I knew, before my husband spoke up, what was wrong. I had
postpartum depression (PPD), and as it turns out I was a textbook
case. The depression hit suddenly, without an identifiable cause,
and within my son's first year. It was my second experience with
motherhood, which, according to some, is actually the more common
time to get depressed.
Of course I've had the "baby blues" as they call it,
the tears bursting forth at the sight of a tiny sock or at the improper
loading of the dishwasher. The baby blues is a relatively brief
reaction that occurs usually within a few days of giving birth and
hits from 50 to 80 percent of all mothers. It is the most common
form of postpartum reaction, causing sudden crying, irritability,
restlessness and anxiety. This period of emotional hyperarousal
is thought nowadays to be an essential component of mother-child
bonding, not a mood disorder. It usually departs as quickly as it
comes.
Athens Mothers'
Center
The Athens Mothers' Center is a wonderful place
for new moms. Meeting at St. Gregory's Episcopal Church Tuesday
and Friday mornings from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., AMC provides
moms a chance to get together and share parenting ideas and
concerns, and participate in discussion, craft, parenting,
and exercise groups. It is also an excellent place to begin
separating from your baby when you are ready, as there is
childcare available. AMC members are supportive regardless
of what kind of day you're having - most of them have been
there before. Members share information via an e-mail listserv
regarding all kinds of parenting topics on an informal basis,
including pediatrician and obstetrician recommendations, parenting
techniques, fun places to go with kids, and AMC organization
information. For more information call 706-552-8554 or visit
www.athensmothers.org
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What I was experiencing after the birth of my son went deeper than
baby blues. Postpartum depression is indeed a profound disorder,
with symptoms such as fatigue and exhaustion, sadness, appetite
and sleep disturbances, poor concentration, memory loss, overconcern
for the baby, uncontrollable crying, guilt, lack of interest in
the baby, fear of harming the baby or yourself, exaggerated highs
and/or lows, lack of interest in sex, and intrusive thoughts. For
me, the problem was plain old sadness, but a sadness that seemed
to stand between me and the world and set me far apart. It was a
sadness that brought tremendous guilt - guilt that I was unhappy
although our baby was healthy, guilt over what my sadness could
do to our children.
Postpartum depression can look different from one woman to the
next, and from one day to the next. Women with a previous history
of depression are more at risk for PPD than those without this history,
but any woman who is pregnant, has had a baby within the past year
or miscarried, had an abortion or interrupted pregnancy, or recently
weaned a child from nursing can experience a postpartum disorder
regardless of how many uncomplicated pregnancies she has had in
the past. The common theme among women who have this sort of depression
is the sense that it is a feeling unlike anything they have had
before, and it makes it difficult for them to function.
Tracy Harper, an area mom, shared her experience with me: "In
the beginning, I didn't want my baby. I cried all the time. I didn't
want to eat. I lost a lot of weight really fast. I wanted to go
back to being pregnant, not being a new mom. The responsibility
was so overwhelming. My husband and I both knew it was PPD."
Another Athens mom recalls her depression setting in before her
child was born: "I remember just being so alone. I know pregnant
women cry a lot, but it seemed I cried A LOT." Her depression
went away, but returned after the baby was born, and she remembers,
"I couldn't keep up with the house. When the baby was crying
(which seemed like always), I couldn't deal with that. My husband
did nothing the way I wanted him to. I felt horrible bodywise. I
couldn't stop crying. Nothing I did was right, and I could do nothing."
If you think you have postpartum depression:

Visit your OB/GYN
to talk about PPD.
Find names of counselors from
friends, your doctor, and the yellow pages, and "interview"
them about their experience with PPD and their approach to
treating it.
Read up, beginning with Postpartum
Survival Guide: It Wasn't Supposed to Be Like This, by Ann
Dunnewold, PhD, and Diane G. Sanford, PhD.
Search the web |
It is worth mentioning that postpartum reactions can take other
forms than depression. Some women with PPD have feelings of anxiety
that amount to a panic disorder, characterized by intense fear,
rapid breathing, palpitations, hot or cold flashes, shaking, dizziness,
chest pains, insomnia, and feelings of wanting to "run away."
Others may even show signs of postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder,
with intrusive or repetitive thoughts and anxiety. A very small
number of women, about one in one thousand, experience the exaggerated
and severe symptoms of postpartum psychosis and require immediate
treatment.
The good news about the baby blues and postpartum depression is
that both have relatively high rates of successful treatment. For
a simple case of baby blues, all you may need is time and sleep
to get past the feeling and put it behind you. For more serious
postpartum reactions, the best treatment plan begins with a medical
evaluation. Dr. Margaret Cramer of Athens Women's Clinic notes that
PPD is "more common than most people think," and if you
even suspect there is depression beyond baby blues, it is best to
check with your doctor right away. She reports that in many cases,
a mother's response to simple questions at the follow-up visit gives
her an idea of whether or not her patient is depressed. Dr. Cramer
explains that the postpartum period is a time of "incredible
disruption," physically and emotionally. Hormones are unbalanced,
neurotransmitters are in flux, and seratonin levels are unstable
as well. Add to this the adjustment of a new child and the lack
of sleep, and it is not hard to understand why PPD is a part of
life for some women.
Some women I spoke with said they just "snapped out of it"
at some point during their baby's first year. Others sought medical
help and some of those began taking antidepressants like Prozac,
Zoloft, Paxil or Celexa (SSRIs) and found it really helped. Some
turned to a group of fellow mothers at the Athens Mother's Center.
My own treatment plan consisted of an appointment with a counselor,
which turned into regular sessions that helped me to talk through
my feelings and reframe them. The depression waned and left me after
two months, but I liked the counseling and stayed on a while (what
new mom turns down someone who will listen to her complain?). Angel
Davis, a counselor familiar with PPD, stresses that postpartum reactions
have "no reflection on who [women] are, their capability as
mothers, or how much they love their children." Rather, seeking
help can be the best act of mothering a woman can perform. Davis
agrees that "a lot of it is just having an objective person
looking at things, someone whose feelings they don't have to worry
about hurting."
All the women I spoke with for this article, doctors, counselors
and moms alike, stressed the importance of taking postpartum depression
seriously Each one also wanted to emphasize that PPD is, as Dr.
Cramer puts it, "a real thing, a legitimate thing."
I found that once I began to talk about the experience, the PPD
support group was all around me in the women I knew. Some friends
had experienced postpartum depression and encouraged me greatly
with their ways of coping. I realized then that I was neither more
nor less than normal, and that having gone through PPD did not exclude
me from being a cool mom.
I know that some people will read this article and remark to me
that I don't seem "the sort of person to get depressed."
Of course that would be wrong. No one can predict exactly who will
end up with PPD. It does not indicate weakness or point out unfit
mothers. I can only describe it as a condition that comes with the
territory for some of us. Ultimately we handle it as best we can,
and then hopefully wave goodbye to it and move on.
Susan Detrick-Atchley is a mother of two living in Watkinsville.
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