Word: births
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...doleful litany goes on and on. What can possibly explain such horrific acts? Increasingly, doctors and psychiatrists are pointing to temporary mental breakdown in the months after giving birth, postpartum disorders that can range from mild depression to full-blown psychosis. Medical experts have long known that though the year after the birth of a child may be one of the most joyful times in a woman's life, it is also among the most stressful. Between 50% and 80% of new mothers experience an emotional letdown, known as the "baby blues," and become sensitive, moody and tearful. Such feelings...
However, about 8% to 12% of women who give birth suffer a blacker torment and become seriously depressed for months. They undergo mercurial mood swings, lose their appetite and go sleepless for nights on end. Plagued by thoughts of ; suicide or fantasies of killing their baby by dropping it down the stairs, burying it in the backyard or cutting it up with a kitchen knife. "These are invasive, terrifying ideas that can drive them crazy," says Psychiatrist Ricardo Fernandez, of Princeton, N.J. "A lot of women have a tremendous amount of guilt and shame because of these thoughts...
...psychological explanations have been suggested. "A woman is undergoing a tremendous hormonal upheaval around the time of childbirth," says Nancy Reame, a women's health researcher at the University of Michigan. During pregnancy, estrogen and progesterone increase a thousandfold, then abruptly drop to normal or sometimes below normal after birth, which may precipitate sudden emotional disorders. Breast feeding is also accompanied by major hormonal changes...
...psychotic episodes, has become quite effective. It may include medication, hospitalization, electroconvulsive therapy and counseling. Some women, including those who have experienced problem pregnancies or have a family history of mental illness, are thought to be at higher risk of developing postpartum trouble. Preventive injections of progesterone ; immediately after birth may be suggested for women who have suffered from depression after a previous birth...
...three days of delivery, well before most postpartum difficulty arises. Husbands and doctors frequently fail to appreciate the gravity of the illness. Sharon Comitz, a Pennsylvania pharmaceutical clerk who dropped her month-old son from a bridge into a mountain stream, had previously been hospitalized for depression after the birth of a daughter. Yet when she came home with her new son, her husband Glenn recalls, "I didn't realize it, but she was just going through the motions. She would bathe the baby in the kitchen but would have no towels, no diapers, no powder. Then she would...