Perinatal Depression (Nursing)

Excerpt

Childbirth is a difficult and exhausting process. A female goes through a lot of hormonal, physical, emotional, and psychological changes throughout pregnancy. Tremendous changes occur in the mother's familial and interpersonal world. After childbirth, a mother can experience varied emotions ranging from joy and pleasure to sadness and crying bouts. These feelings of sadness and tearfulness are called "baby blues," and they tend to decrease over the first 2 weeks after delivery.

Around one in seven women can develop perinatal depression. While women experiencing baby blues tend to recover quickly, perinatal depression tends to be longer and severely affects women's ability to return to normal function. Perinatal depression affects the mother and her relationship with the infant. Maternal brain response and behavior are compromised in perinatal depression. According to Beck in 2006, as many as half of perinatal depression in new mothers go undiagnosed because of conflict in privacy and not wanting to disclose to close family members. There is also a stigma around new mothers in that disclosure may lead to abandonment and fear of lack of support.