Today, just talk to you about what postpartum depression is and how to prevent, help yourself and treat it.
In fact, postpartum depression is not a rare phenomenon, almost 80% of mothers experience postpartum depression called babyblue about a week after delivery, 90% of them will gradually get better, but there are still 10% of mothers who are troubled by depression for a long time and become diagnosed with postpartum depression.
Postpartum depression is an emotional state that cannot be experienced by anyone other than the person involved.
The patient herself feels extremely sensitive, the slightest thing can make her explode, and she is weak and drowning in pain;
To others and even to the husband, the postpartum depressed patient is pretentious in the midst of good food and good care, and is irrational, unreasonable and incomprehensible.
This difference in perception has caused many patients to have red lights in their marriages after childbirth, and even to go their separate ways.
So what exactly is postpartum depression? Why are patients plagued by postpartum depression?
Postpartum depression is a psychological disorder characterized by a series of symptoms such as depression, sadness, frustration, crying, irritability, irritability, and even suicidal or infanticidal tendencies after delivery, and is the most common type of puerperal psychiatric syndrome.
It usually occurs within 2 weeks-6 weeks after delivery, and some of them can recover on their own in 3-6 months, but severe ones can also last 1 to 2 years, and some even last for several years.
The incidence of postpartum depression ranges from 6% to 30% in different regions.
Postpartum depression in the first pregnancy has a recurrence rate of 20% to 50% in the second pregnancy.
Its etiology is unknown and may be related to genetic, psychological, delivery and social factors.
Currently, there is also a medical tendency to refer to depression throughout pregnancy and childbirth as maternal depression.
Clinical symptoms of postpartum depression
The main symptoms of postpartum depression are persistent depressed mood, tearfulness and unexplained sadness. They often feel lonely, empty and depressed, and often lose their temper and cry over trivial matters.
It also often includes symptoms such as irritability, anxiety, fear and panic. Lack of interest in life and things that used to interest them often make them unhappy and reluctant to interact with others, and they may even blame themselves, feel guilty, feel bad about taking care of their children, be useless, and worry and doubt about their own health and that of their children.
Postpartum depression also often includes physical symptoms such as low appetite, weight loss, early sleepiness, fatigue, lethargy, and constipation. In addition, unexplained insomnia, headache, body aches, dizziness, blurred vision, and ringing in the ears after delivery should also be considered for postpartum depression.
Cognitive symptoms such as lack of concentration, forgetfulness and lack of confidence are also often present.
In severe cases, there may also be reduced self-esteem, feelings of disappointment and uselessness, and such patients may commit suicide or harm their newborns.
There are some differences between the causes of postpartum depression and general depression.
First of all, it is related to the huge endocrine changes during pregnancy, especially in the 24 hours after delivery, and the drastic change of hormone levels in the patient’s body is the physiological factor for the occurrence of postpartum depression.
After pregnancy, estrogen and progesterone are significantly increased in the body, and corticosteroids and thyroxine are also increased to different degrees. After delivery, these hormones suddenly and rapidly retreat, and the levels of progesterone and estrogen drop, leading to a decrease in catecholamines in the brain and endocrine tissue, which affects higher brain activity.
In addition, it has been found that the release of placental steroids reaches a peak at the time of delivery and maternal moods are high, while after delivery placental steroid secretion decreases rapidly and maternal moods begin to depress.
Secondly, the large amount of exertion during childbirth, especially bleeding, makes some mothers’ bodies unable to bear it and is an important reason for postpartum depression or postpartum infection, fever, and other diseases of mothers;
Thirdly, the postpartum susceptibility of the central nervous system and the effects of emotional and motor information processing regulatory systems (e.g., dopamine) in some mothers may be related to the onset of postpartum depression;
Fourth, major changes during pregnancy may also lead to depression, such as moving, job change, loss of a loved one, poor family financial situation, marital disagreement, housing difficulties, gender and health status of the baby, etc;
Fifth, the husband takes less care of the child, conflicts among family members, and lack of moral support from family members can cause psychological stress to the mother and lead to postpartum depression;
Finally, perfectionist women have high expectations of themselves and others, and it is also difficult to adapt to the role of new mothers, and depressed new mothers are more likely to suffer from postpartum depression.
How to determine if you are suffering from postpartum depression
The diagnosis of postpartum depression has no unified judgment criteria so far, and the one that is more applied now is the one developed by American Psychiatry in the Diagnosis and Statistics of Mental Disorders (1994): with 5 or more of the following symptoms, must have 1 or 2 of them and last for more than 2 weeks, and the patient feels distressed or the patient’s social function has received serious impact.
Symptoms include.
1.Mood depression.
2. Significant lack of interest or pleasure in all or most activities.
3. Significant weight loss or gain.
4. Insomnia or excessive sleepiness.
5. Psychomotor excitement or blockage.
6.Fatigue or fatigue.
7. A sense of meaninglessness or guilt in all matters.
8.Decreased thinking power or inattentiveness.
9.Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.
How to prevent postpartum depression
Psychological intervention according to each maternal psychological factors or risk factors will help to reduce the occurrence of PPD.
1. Strengthen maternal health care, pay attention to counseling and guidance on maternal mental health, monitor and make necessary interventions for high-risk pregnant women with bad personalities, previous history of PPD or family history, and screened for psychiatric symptoms.
Emphasis on running a good school for pregnant women, encourage pregnant women and their husbands to come to class together, learn about pregnancy and childbirth, understand the process of labor and delivery and the relaxation techniques and midwifery staff to eliminate their negative emotions of tension and fear.
2.Improve the environment of childbirth, establish a family birthing room to replace the previous closed delivery room, and improve the mother’s perception of the natural process of childbirth.
Carry out guided delivery, accompanied by husband or other relatives after the delivery, which can reduce the occurrence of complications and psychological abnormalities.
3, pay attention to puerperal health care, especially to maternal mental health care.
For mothers with long delivery time, difficult delivery or bad pregnancy outcome, they should be given key psychological care, pay attention to protective medical treatment and avoid mental stimulation.
We should practice mother-infant co-location, encourage and guide breastfeeding, and do a good job in guiding the health care of newborns to reduce the physical and psychological burdens of mothers, and counsel the families of mothers to do a good job in the health care of mothers and newborns during the puerperium.
We should pay enough attention to mothers who have a history of mental depression or appear to have emotional depression in the past, identify them in time, and give appropriate treatment to prevent the occurrence of postpartum depression.
What to do for mothers and families suffering from postpartum depression
1, family members, especially the new father’s care, care and companionship is vital.
2.Eat more foods that help improve your mood: celery and lily shrimp, shiitake mushroom and tofu, diced chicken with peach nuts, lean meat, nuts, green vegetables, deep-sea fish and red beans are all good choices.
3, appropriate help maternal massage liver meridian points, three yin jiao, foot three miles can improve maternal mood.
4, actively help the mother to seek psychological help.
(1) supportive psychotherapy: supportive psychotherapy is also known as support therapy. It refers to the implementation of medical care process, medical personnel to the patient’s psychological state reasonable use of persuasion, encouragement, sympathy, comfort, support, as well as understanding and reassurance, can effectively eliminate the patient’s bad mood, so that they are in the best psychological state to accept treatment, so as to ensure the smooth progress of treatment, so that the disease early recovery.
(2) Interpersonal psychotherapy: This depression psychotherapy method is mainly used to treat the acute onset of depression in adults, aiming to alleviate depressive symptoms and improve some social problems of depressed patients. Common interpersonal problems in depressed patients include four areas: abnormal sadness reactions, interpersonal conflicts, difficulties in role transition and lack of interpersonal interactions.
(3) Music therapy: There is no more popular psychotherapeutic approach for depression than music therapy. The limbic system and brainstem reticular formation of the brain play a major regulatory role in the internal organs and somatic functions of the body, and music can have a direct or indirect effect on these neural structures.
(4) Focus shift: If you do face a serious unpleasant life event after giving birth, or even a problem that is difficult to solve, don’t let your energy always focus on the bad event. The more you think about unpleasant things the worse your mood will be, and the worse your mood is the easier it is to take the bull by the horns, and the more depressed you will be, falling into a vicious circle of emotions. So to properly transfer their attention, is a transfer method, the attention will be shifted to some pleasant things, pay attention to their preferences, not only thinking about the transfer, but also physically involved in the pleasant activities within their reach.
(5) behavior adjustment method: in view of women are not suitable for strenuous exercise after birth, but some appropriate relaxation activities are very necessary, such as deep breathing, walking, meditation, meditation of calm images, listening to soothing and beautiful music and so on.
(6) confide in the catharsis method: find friends or relatives to communicate, to tell their hearts, cry a lot, it does not matter, to give vent to depressed emotions.
(7) Alternate roles: Don’t forget that although you are a mother, you are still your husband’s wife and your parents’ daughter, and no one can be a full-time mother 24/7.
(8) Self-encouragement method: self-appreciation, more to see their own merits, more to see the benefits of things, more to think about the possible success of things.
(9) Self-actualization method: Having children is just one way for women to self-actualize, but never the only way, so don’t forget that there are other potential and needs for self-actualization. Maybe take advantage of the time off for maternity leave to also focus on a career that you have a knack for, and when maternity leave is over there will be a new image of a makeover.
5.Medication
Selective 5-hydroxytryptamine reuptake inhibition can be used, with less toxic side effects, easy to take and other characteristics. It is the first-line drug for depression treatment in many developed countries today. Representative drugs are fluoxetine, paroxetine, sertraline, fluvoxamine, citalopram. Or choose to take new antidepressants with other transmitter mechanisms.
(1) Trazodone: It is a weak antidepressant with a comparatively poor effect on severe depression. It is the best indication for mild to moderate depression against anxiety and insomnia.
②Duloxetine, venlafaxine: applicable to various depressive states, fast onset of action, no special contraindications, but caution in patients with liver and kidney.
③Mirtazapine: this drug is well tolerated and has few side effects, and is a new type of antidepressant.
④Moclobemide: It can treat various types of depression and has a better effect on mixed states of anxiety and depression.
6.Physical therapy
Compared with drugs, physiotherapy has the characteristics of no side effects and significant dependence efficacy. Transcranial microcurrent stimulation therapy is a physical therapy that stimulates the brain through microcurrent, which can directly regulate the brain to secrete a series of neurotransmitters and hormones that help improve depression. By promoting the secretion of endorphins with sedative effect, it can maintain a relaxed and comfortable mental state of the patient, which is conducive to better alleviate the previous negative and depressed emotional state. In addition, by improving the patient’s brain waves and various physiological indicators, it serves to improve various somatic symptoms of depressed patients.