Postpartum depression

Postpartum depression
Monday January 29, 2007

Dear Alice,

many thanks for answering my previous question but still new questions arise in my head and I would like to ask you again to spend some words this time about postpartum depression.

I will appreciate very much your answer.

Best regards, S. G.

AM: It is absolutely normal that the birth of a child, above all of the first one, triggers in the young mother emotions connected to her own birth. If she gets help thanks to the presence of a doula for instance, she can consciously experience these feelings even if they were traumatic and have been kept hidden to herself for a long time. But if she is left alone to herself with not the slightest understanding from the people around her, she will repress again her emotional “memories” of her own birth and instead of accepting them will get what is called a depression. The label “post partum” suggests that this is a normal reaction to a birth. But the normal reaction to having given space to a new human being is joy, if the mother also was received with joy and not with fear or even hatred when she was born.