PreNatal Depression

I battled prenatal depression ... for the whole nine months

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1145490/I-battled-prenatal-depression---months.html


When Tina Barrett was pregnant with her first child, her husband Craig, 42, was overjoyed, as were both of their families. Tina knew it should have been the happiest time of her life, too, yet every morning she woke up feeling utterly bleak.
She found herself bursting into tears constantly, and at night she could not sleep, even though she was exhausted.
'I just wanted to shut myself away from the world,' says Tina, 32, a public relations executive. 'The pregnancy wasn't planned. Ideally we'd have waited a few more years, but Craig - a graphic designer - and I wanted a family and we didn't even consider not having the child.
Pregnancy blues: But Tina Barrett's depression lifted when she had Emerson



'But I couldn't understand why I didn't feel as ecstatic as everyone around me, why something just didn't feel right. I didn't want to look at the pregnancy books people gave me or go to antenatal classes. 'I've always been an optimistic person, but once I became pregnant I didn't feel like me any more. 'I was terrified that I wasn't good enough to be a mother. And more than anything I was petrified of the birth and felt out of control of my body, particularly as my bump began to grow and I couldn't pretend it wasn't happening any more.'

Although she didn't know it, Tina was suffering from prenatal (also known as antenatal or perinatal) depression that can occur during pregnancy.
Research suggests that just as many, if not more, women suffer from antenatal as from postnatal depression. Yet, while postnatal depression is well known and well researched, prenatal depression remains relatively unrecognised. In 2001 a paper published in the British Medical Journal revealed that as many as one in ten expectant mothers were suffering from depression - more than the nine per cent of women who suffer from postnatal depression.

Half of women with antenatal depression will go on to be diagnosed with postnatal depression, which can have a damaging effect on child development, and in the most severe cases mothers may develop psychotic symptoms, potentially placing a newborn baby at risk.
Tina had never been depressed before - so she didn't recognise that her feelings of detachment and weepiness were classic symptoms. Perhaps more worryingly, nor did her GP. 'When I mentioned to my doctor that I was feeling down, she said it was "just hormones",' says Tina. 'I didn't know of anyone who had been depressed while pregnant, so I thought there was something wrong with me.

'Only afterwards did one of my friends admit that she felt similar during her pregnancy. She put me in touch with a specialist doctor who told me I'd had the classic symptoms of prenatal depression.' Consultant psychiatrist Dr Leon van Hyssteen says: 'Mothers with prenatal depression experience low mood, anxiety, irritability, and feeling sad and lonely. They might also have problems sleeping, loss of appetite, a lack of energy and concentration and sometimes thoughts of self-harm or suicide. 'The biggest concern is that the early signs are confused with normal pregnancy and antenatal depression therefore goes undiagnosed.


'Pregnancy in its own right can cause mothers to have many of the symptoms of depression. However in antenatal depression these are usually more intense and longer lasting.' Identifying women with antenatal depression is complicated by the fact that many sufferers don't reveal their feelings out of a sense of guilt or shame. Tina says she hid her feelings. 'I still feel guilty, just talking about it. I know how many people are desperate for a baby and can't have one, and I felt terrible that I was pregnant and miserable about it.' Treating a pregnant woman with depression poses a problem, however. 'There's a dilemma,' says Dr Jonathan Evans, consultant senior lecturer in psychiatry at the University of Bristol and the AWP (Avon and Wiltshire) mental health trust.

'Giving antidepressant drugs in pregnancy is not a good idea and many women would not be willing to take them. One of the other main treatments that can be effective is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), a type of talking therapy that works by helping people to change their beliefs and behaviour patterns. We're now looking at ways of identifying depressed women early in pregnancy.'

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence, the Government agency that provides guidelines for medics, has recommended screening for depression and then treating it quickly with CBT. Fortunately, Tina found her depression lifted naturally after baby Emerson was born on July 8, 2007. 'Words can't describe how I felt to see I had a healthy baby boy. I couldn't stop staring at him, I felt so overwhelmed with happiness.
'I love being a mum. I just wish that I'd had some help and support during my pregnancy. If my depression had been spotted earlier, the nine months could have been a far less unhappy time.'

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

Heh. Emerson. Isn't that a fucking appliance company? What about pre-prenatal depression? That's my problem...

If she named the kid Emerson you'd think she'd be able to "transcend" her blues.

i wonder if her next kids are called lake and palmer

*********************************************************************************************************************************
I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

Jeez, could it be that these women didn't want to be pregnant? (And there is a pretty simple cure for that.)

Instead, we have some stupid "syndrome" that requires treatment by a mental health professional.

"One of the other main treatments that can be effective is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), a type of talking therapy that works by helping people to change their beliefs and behaviour patterns." Translation: You'll listen to happy-sappy hypnosis tapes where you are told having a baybee is wonderful and you aren't really depressed. Even though your life is fucked for the next 18+ years, you'll find a way to be happy anyway. Because all women really luuuv those babies and the shit work that goes with them.

"And more than anything I was petrified of the birth and felt out of control of my body, particularly as my bump began to grow and I couldn't pretend it wasn't happening any more."

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. If I were pregnant I would be totally terrified and I'd have planned parenthood on speed dial.

And my personal pet peeve is how even this condition is phrased from the POV of the harm to the baybee:

"Half of women with antenatal depression will go on to be diagnosed with postnatal depression, which can have a damaging effect on child development, and in the most severe cases mothers may develop psychotic symptoms, potentially placing a newborn baby at risk."

I would think being psychotic would hardly be a piece of cake for the mother, KWIM?

It's kind of like morning sickness. I had a friend who was completely ill throughout her pregnasty---we're talking, she had to be fed and watered via a PIC line, because she vomited night and day. Yet too many doctors say that MS is "good for the baybee" because statistically speaking, MS suffers don't miscarriage as much as women who don't have it. Well, isn't that a consolation to someone who loses 20% of her body weight during pregnasty? Not hardly.

That's not morning sickness. That's called hyperemesis gravidarum, and it's potentially fatal if it goes untreated. The meds for it (the pill form, at least) cost $800 a month, and there's no generic. I suffered through this the first time I got pregnant. It started at 7 weeks, and I didn't find out I was pregnant until 6 and a half weeks. I was also horribly (putting it lightly) depressed before I ever found out I was pregnant.

I suffered for 3 days like that until I learned that no, it was not typical morning sickness and that there was treatment for it. My OB/GYN refused to prescribe me the meds (you know, so I could actually eat and drink and sleep and live) because I intended to have an abortion. So off to the ER I went. I was so dehydrated that the blood they drew, after trying 4 times, was like syrup. They even had a hard time getting the IV in a vein.

Didn't get my abortion until 10 weeks, due to a 3-week waiting period in the state I lived in. Bastards. Good thing I had Medicaid at the time (not so lucky, now), or I'd probably be dead from organ failure, or up to my eyeballs in debt (both?).

There's a bunch of forums online where women piss and moan about it, yet they keep having kids. And of course, the vast majority of the time, you have it with every pregnancy. It's mind-boggling to read what these stupid cunts suffer through, only to do it again and again. I figure they love the attention.

Every moo realizes that once she shits out the brat, her name automatically changes to "Shitleigh's moo-mie" or "Cuntford's moo-mie". Their brains, identity and talent all flush away with the placenta.