A medical survey by the Leipzig Map Institute for Mental Health in Germany showed that more than 70 percent of mothers experience “bed rest depression” for a few weeks after the birth of a child, and then most will recover quickly, but about 13 percent will remain depressed for more than three months. The researchers found that reduced concentrations of neurotransmitters in the brain are an important cause of postpartum depression.
This is the result of a collaborative study by Maple Institute of Mental Health researcher Julia Saha and Jeffrey Meyer of the Human Cognition and Brain Sciences Research Centre in Toronto, Canada. For most women, having a baby is one of the happiest events of their lives, so it is often not understood why mothers are depressed after the birth of a child, and some mothers even fall into extreme sadness, experiencing depressive symptoms such as anxiety, fear, insomnia and loss of appetite.
Recent studies have found that maternal estrogen levels drop dramatically by a factor of 100 to 1000 3 to 4 days after the birth of a child, in contrast to a significant increase in the concentration of some monoamine oxidase (or MAO-A enzyme) substances in brain nerves and glial cells, and a decrease in the levels of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine, which These neurotransmitters play a key role in signaling between brain nerve cells and in the person’s mood, and a lack of these substances makes the person sad and depressed.
With the help of positron emission tomography (PET) scans, researchers were able to clearly identify differences in monoamine oxidase levels in the brains of ordinary women, which are typically 43 percent higher than those of women who have given birth. Maternal monoamine oxidase levels were highest on the fifth day after the birth of the child, which is consistent with clinical observations that maternal mood tends to reach its lowest point on this day as well.