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having a baby can be one of the happiest
and most important events in a woman's
life and also could be hard and
stressful and because of the changes in
hormones many women experience sadness
anxiety and despair the weeks or months
after having a baby
yeah postpartum depression affects one
in seven women so we are talking to dr.
Jennifer wells from Karelian clinic
about what to look for and when you
should seek help thank you so much for
coming in my pleasure thanks for having
me so let's talk about some of the signs
and symptoms of postpartum depression
okay I'll back up and make a separation
between postpartum blues baby blues and
postpartum depression so those two
things often get confused by people one
we differentiate them two factors timing
and severity okay so we think of
postpartum blues as sort of normative
dysphoria this idea of being stressed
unhappy unsure overwhelmed in the days
or one week two weeks following a new
infant entering every family's life
which is a lot all by itself happens
about 80% of the time anyway a lot of
moms are experiencing this and dads too
then when we look at postpartum
depression we think of that as a more
severe mood disorder characterized by
overwhelming feelings of depression
sadness hopelessness worthlessness
sometimes a lot of anxiety disinterest
or inability to connect with your infant
sometimes a lot of anger poor sleep
which is characteristic of almost every
home that has a new baby yeah
so sometimes um over sleeping people do
that for comfort when they're depressed
yes I remember with my first I think I
had the baby blues yeah because yeah I
would be sad but not despair and I think
that's a big differentiation yes like
when you bring a new infant home your
whole world is sort of turned upside
down even if it's 2nd 3rd 4th it's still
a change in the family system change in
finances change in your relationship and
lots of people experience a lot of
overwhelming feelings trying to get new
systems in
get organized do what they're supposed
to do we think of that more as
postpartum blues now why might it be
difficult to like realize or express
that you have postpartum depression well
still in our society there's a lot of
stigma around mental illness all by
itself without having a baby and in
these days or even throughout history
right you have a baby it's supposed to
be the most joyous time and your
favorite base everything so good and
it's just gonna be so wonderful right in
those feelings of being overwhelmed and
not knowing what to do and if it expands
into a more depressive illness for you
don't want to get up every day and your
baby cries and you're not connected and
the mother-infant dyad is disrupted then
those are times you need to seek help
but everyone around just like oh my god
isn't it so great right breastfeeding
how's that going
right it's a lot of yeah sure yeah
people are saying oh you should must be
so happy right and then you go no I'm
not but it's hard to admit hard to say
yeah yeah even with friends sometimes
you have moms who like haven't
experienced it so they don't really know
what to do with you have friends that
haven't had a baby at all so they don't
really know what they do with it so it's
sort of incumbent on health
professionals OBGYNs pediatricians
psychiatrist family practitioners nurse
midwives you know who has ever in
contact with a new mom to ask how we do
want to get to what should we do to seek
help if we feel like we are being
affected by this so first thing I want
you to do is is reach out so reach out
to a friend reach out to a doctor reach
out to a pastor reach out to a counselor
any person you can if you get an
unsatisfactory result then I want you to
reach again and I know that's very hard
to do but your OB should be asking you
these questions we routinely screen and
psychiatrists do if you have follow-up
you had depression before so you're in
care with a psychiatrist they should be
asking you those questions as well