Effects of Postpartum Depression

Effects of Postpartum Depression

Introduction

The joys of motherhood for many women can also lead other new moms to experience postpartum depression and even worse - ideas for committing suicide. For these women contemplating taking their own lives, the mother-infant relationship and development was a negative experience, with greater mood disturbances, cognitive distortions, low maternal self-esteem, negative perceptions of their effectiveness as a new parent and noticeably less responsiveness to their infants' cues. (Hagen, E., and Barrett, H. C. 2007)

Those are the findings of a new two-year study by Ruth Paris, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Clinical Practice at Boston University's School of Social Work, Rendelle E. Bolton, a graduate student at the BU School of Social Work and M. Katherine Weinberg, Ph.D., a psychologist and an infant development specialist. (Hagen, E., and Barrett, H. C. 2007) Their research "Postpartum Depression, Suicidality and Mother-Infant Interactions appear in the September 3rd online edition of Archives of Women's Mental Health. Postpartum depression, they note, occurs in an estimated 19 percent of new mothers and ideas of suicide is considered a common part of this serious mental health problem. The team worked with clinicians at the Jewish Family and Children's Service Early Connections program, a home-based mother-infant psychotherapy intervention that specializes in the treatment of postpartum depression (PPD) and mood disorders. The program's key goal is to increase the mother's ability to be affectively present in her interaction with the child and to address issues that arise as result of becoming a mother. The participating women -- most of them first-time mothers in their 30s - had a wide range of suicidal thinking, as the study examined the phenomenon of suicidality and its relationship to maternal mood, perceptions and mother-infant interactions. All the new mothers in the study suffered from depression, isolation and extreme difficulties in parenting infants. They responded to a series of pre-treatment questionnaires, self-report symptom inventories and parenting stress indices. Each of the 32 participants was also observed and videotaped twice - the first to evaluate a structured task-oriented (asking the parent to guide the infant in following a rattle) and later an unstructured interaction (how they interacted with their baby without the use any toys or other props). (Hagen, E., and Barrett, H. C. 2007)

Literature review

The exact reasons why some new mothers develop postpartum depression and others don't are unknown. But a number of interrelated causes and risk factors are believed to contribute to the problem. The rapid hormonal changes that accompany pregnancy and delivery may trigger depression. After childbirth, women experience a big drop in estrogen and progesterone hormone levels. Thyroid levels can also drop, which leads to fatigue and depression. These hormone dips—along with the changes in blood pressure, immune system functioning, and metabolism that new mothers experience—can all play a part in postpartum depression. It has been theorized that women who are more sensitive to these hormone imbalances develop postpartum depression. (O'Hara, 2005)

Women who have just given birth are also dealing with numerous ...