Depression After Pregnancy

What is depression after pregnancy?

Depression after pregnancy is having symptoms like feeling sad, upset and down in the dumps. Many times women feel these symptoms after pregnancy or after some days of periods. As depression is considered it is a mood disorder in which causes sad feelings, sudden anger or irritaion, frustration interfere with everyday life for an extended time occurs.

Depression after pregnancy can be mild, moderate, or severe and the degree of depression can be concluded by your doctor as per your descriptions of the symptoms.

How common is depression during and after pregnancy?

Perinatal depression is the type of depression that occurs during pregnancy and can be within a year after delivery. It is not at all possible to detect the exact number of women with depression during this time. As per research it is believed that depression is now a days most common complications during and after pregnancy in the women's life.

This type of depression is very often recognized or treated, because some normal pregnancy changes lead to the symptoms of depressions and are happening at the same time. Tiredness, sleeping problems, emotional imbalance and sudden body weight loss or gain occurs during pregnancy and after pregnancy. But the same may cause or lead to the mild or moderate depression.

What are symptoms of depression after pregnancy?

Following are the symptoms during and after pregnancy that may last more than two weeks and are cause of depression:

• Feeling restless
• Feeling sad, hopeless
• Crying a lot
• Having lack of energy or motivation
• Too little or too much eating habit
• Too little or too much Sleeping habit
• Trouble focusing, remembering, or making decisions
• Continuous guilty feeling
• Loss of interest in life activities
• Withdrawal of attachment from friends and family
• Headache, chest pain, heart palpitations or hyperventilation
• Afraid of hurting oneself or the baby and less or no interest in the baby.

What causes depression after pregnancy?

In case of pregnancy depressions there may be various different reasons because of which woman gets depressed and feel disturbed. Sudden changes in the hormonal levels, stressful situations such as a death of any family member surely cause chemical changes in the brain that effectively lead to depression. It is also an illness that runs in some families hereditary. Many times it is very difficult to find out the reason of depression after pregnancy.

During pregnancy factors which increase chance of depression

• Extra care about the fetus
• Previous pregnancy problems
• May be marital or financial problems
• Very young age of mother
• Previous history of depression or substance abuse
• Family background of mental illness
• Improper or little support from family and friends

Some helpful tips

• Try to take more rest as you can.
• Don't try to do everything on yourself and do as much as you can.
• Ask for help from others for feeding baby. Ask your family members to bring the baby to you so you can breastfeed him.
• Always share how you feel with all your family members may be husband, or friends.
• Never spend a long time alone. Go for a short walk.
• Spend at least sometime alone with your husband.
• Chat with other mothers and learn from their experiences about their babies.
• Also Join a support group for women with depression.
• Do not take any decision which lead to major change in life during pregnancy.

How is depression treated?

One can go for certain common types of treatment for depression listed as below.

• Talk therapy is one of the best solution for it contains talking to a therapist, psychologist to learn to change depressed feelings, and actions.
• Medicine as per the prescription by your doctor mainly antidepressant medicine which reduces the stress and change the mood.
• Women those who are pregnant or breastfeeding should consult properly to the doctors about the risks of taking antidepressant medicines.
• Women who decide to take antidepressant medicines should know clearly about which antidepressant medicines are safer to take while pregnant or breastfeeding so that to avoid any side effect on baby's growth.

Other factors which contribute to postpartum depression

Other factors which contribute to postpartum depression are listed as below :

• Tired feeling after delivery, broken sleep and not enough rest which stops new mother from regaining her full strength for weeks.
• Feeling overwhelmed with another, baby to take care of and doubting abut being a good mother.
• Stress feeling from change in work and home routines. Thinking to be a perfect mother, which is not realistic.
• Having low control on thinking ability and loss of your pre-pregnancy figure, or suddenly feeling less attractive.
• Having very few free time and stay home indoors for long time.

Facts about postpartum depression:

• In most cases half of new mothers experience usually temporary baby blues or some form of postpartum depression.
• True postpartum depression actually affects approximately 10 percent of women who give birth.
• One in thousand women who have a child will suffer from postpartum psychosis is really rear.
• Women who have more than ten children can also suffer from it after the birth of may be first or tenth child.
• Since the mid 1980s postpartum depression is curable.
• Better to take care and avoid postpartum depression before the baby arrives.

Resources for Fighting Depression:

• Self Help for Depression
• End Depression Now
• Conquer Stress, Depression & Anxiety