HW 42 - Pregnancy & birth culminating project

POST-PARTUM DEPRESSION

People see birth as an amazing experience. A lot of men and women decide to have babies because they want to start families. Most women are happy to be with a child, but some other women are constantly worrying about what could happen or what might happen. After a woman gives birth, her life changes. For some women it is good and for some women it is not so good. A woman’s body goes through so much pain and stress when she is in labor and then gives birth. The pain can last for an hour and then it can last for a whole day. After all of this happens, some women can fall into a depression, which medical science calls “Post-Partum Depression”. Doctors are not absolutely sure what causes it; but this depression usually happens after birth. Women with this depression will have negative thoughts and feel alone and feel like no one understands. The pain and stress that happened to their bodies also causes stress to their minds. Most of the time it takes two weeks for a woman to show that she has Post-Partum Depression.

Post-Partum Depression can occur in women who worry a lot. The first symptom of this depression is usually mood swings. For example, a woman could be laughing one minutes and crying the next minute. A woman could hate the way she looks even though her family is telling her she looks beautiful. Also, a woman could feel like she is not a good mother even though she is doing her very best. These mood swings can affect the way she feels about her baby, and can also affect the way she takes care of her baby. The woman could also start to feel like her child will get hurt or start to think of worse things that could happen to her child.
I think it is okay for a mother to worry about her child. My mother said that it is natural for women to worry about their children. But when a woman gets Post-Partum Depression, I think it is very serious. If a mother falls into this depression and cannot take care of her child, and thinks about hurting the child, she needs to get help. The difficult part of this is that not all mothers know that they have this depression. Some mothers may think that they are just sick with a cold, some mothers will think that they are not trying hard enough to be a good mother, and some mothers might think that they need to think more positive thoughts and the depression will go away.
There is no known cure for Post-Partum depression. Some normal changes during and after pregnancy can cause symptoms similar to those of depression. But if a woman have any of the following symptoms of depression for more than two weeks, she should call her doctor:
Feeling restless or moody
Feeling sad, hopeless, and overwhelmed
Crying a lot
Having no energy or motivation
Eating too little or too much
Sleeping too little or too much
Having trouble focusing or making decisions
Having memory problems
Feeling worthless and guilty
Losing interest or pleasure in activities you used to enjoy
Withdrawing from friends and family
Having headaches, aches and pains, or stomach problems that don’t go awayPost-Partum Depression is real. A lot of the symptoms are thought to be other things because after a woman gives birth, her body goes through a lot of changes. So people think that a woman is just getting used to being a mother and taking care of baby. Or sometimes people think that the woman is just tired from not getting enough sleep because a baby needs to be feed throughout the night. But what’s really going on with the woman is that she is mentally and emotionally depressed. I hope that medical science is able to find a cure for this Post-Partum depression. And I also I hope that more women get to understand this depression.