41 - Independent Research

Topic one: postpartum depression


About 13 percent of pregnant women and new mothers have depression. (Womenshealth)

Depression after childbirth is called postpartum depression. Hormonal changes may trigger symptoms of postpartum depression. When you are pregnant, levels of the female hormones estrogen (ESS-truh-jen) and progesterone (proh-JESS-tur-ohn) increase greatly. In the first 24 hours after childbirth, hormone levels quickly return to normal. Researchers think the big change in hormone levels may lead to depression. This is much like the way smaller hormone changes can affect a woman’s moods before she gets her period.
Levels of thyroid hormones may also drop after giving birth. The thyroid is a small gland in the neck that helps regulate how your body uses and stores energy from food. Low levels of thyroid hormones can cause symptoms of depression. A simple blood test can tell if this condition is causing your symptoms. If so, your doctor can prescribe thyroid medicine.

Certain factors may increase your risk of depression during and after pregnancy:

• A personal history of depression or another mental illness
• A family history of depression or another mental illness
• A lack of support from family and friends
• Anxiety or negative feelings about the pregnancy
• Problems with a previous pregnancy or birth
• Marriage or money problems
• Stressful life events
• Young age
• Substance abuse

The symptoms of postpartum depression last longer and are more severe. Postpartum depression can begin anytime within the first year after childbirth. If you have postpartum depression, you may have any of the symptoms of depression listed above. Symptoms may also include:

• Thoughts of hurting the baby
• Thoughts of hurting yourself
• Not having any interest in the baby

Postpartum depression needs to be treated by a doctor.
Postpartum psychosis (seye-KOH-suhss) is rare. It occurs in about 1 to 4 out of every 1,000 births. It usually begins in the first 2 weeks after childbirth. Women who have bipolar disorder or another mental health problem called schizoaffective (SKIT-soh-uh-FEK-tiv) disorder have a higher risk for postpartum psychosis. Symptoms may include:

• Seeing things that aren’t there
• Feeling confused
• Having rapid mood swings
• Trying to hurt yourself or your baby

 The study, of more than 1,700 fathers of 1-year-olds, found that depression occurred in 7 percent of those dads, and increased the odds of recent spankings nearly four-fold and more than halved the likelihood of the men reading with their child most days of the week, reported Dr. R. Neal Davis and colleagues at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. (Phend)

Depressed fathers were 62 percent less likely to report reading to their children at least three days a week and 3.92-fold more likely to have spanked them in the past month. (Phend)

Bibliography

·      David B. , Merrill. "Depression - postpartum; Postnatal depression." National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine. Pub Med Health, 02 Sep 2010. Web. 30 Mar 2011. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0004481/>.

·      Unknown. "Depression During and After Pregnancy." the Office on Women's Health in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health. Women's Health, 06 Mar 2009. Web. 30 Mar 2011. <http://www.womenshealth.gov/faq/depression-pregnancy.cfm>.

·      Phend, Crystal. "Postpartum Depression Affects Dads Too Condition Can Affect Parenting, Researchers Say." ABC News (2011): n. pag. Web. 30 Mar 2011. <http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/postpartum-depression-affects-dads/story?id=13132665>.

 

38

Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife by Peggy Vincent is a book that's straight to the point in describing it's contents and structure. Every few pages jumps between the stories of a new birth significant to the forthcoming of Ms. Vincent changing from a nurse to the midwife. Not every story is directly related to birth, some 'chapters' are dedicated to classes and other people or experiences that separate her from the rest of her peers such as Kennedy's death and Ms. Vincent's disconnect from it and the national depression that followed it. As the reader, we follow her as a nursing student and her beginning to question why the birthing system is set up the way it is. How did it become inhumane enough that a mother wasn't allowed to hold her own child? What made the doctor the God of the delivery room and the woman's body instead of the woman herself?

major insight goes here

Through reading this book, while there were some of these things I also learned from my birthing stories, there were a few (some horrifying, other shocking) things that came up in the book. It's easiest to list them as bullet points:

• During about the fifties and sixties, there was a drug (which Vee from my interviews called Twilight) that made the mothers forget most of the process and supposedly remove the pain.
• At the time of Ms. Vincent's nurses, mothers who didn't follow the norm of what the doctors wanted and expected, they were mocked and considered crazy by the doctors
• While now, as I discovered with my little brother's birth, people can just walk in and out of the delivery room. However, during the time at the start of the book, this wasn't typical or allowed.