Word: mood
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...diagnosed with major depressive disorder today, you need have only five symptoms for two weeks, which can include such common problems as depressed mood, weight gain, insomnia, fatigue and indecisiveness. The current DSM does make an exception for bereavement: if you recently lost a loved one, such symptoms are not considered disordered. But the manual doesn't make exceptions for other things that make us sad - divorce, financial stress, a life-threatening illness...
Nesi's depression abated, but she continued to feel periodic pangs of sadness throughout the course of her pregnancy. On Oct. 27, 2006, when her first son was born, Nesi was overjoyed. But two weeks later, a powerful shift in mood overtook her, ballooning into an episode of postpartum depression that lasted four months. "My mother had to come down and take care of my baby," says Nesi...
What's more, there is a shortage of experts who are qualified to deal with the diagnosis and treatment of antenatal depression. At NYU, Lusskin runs a program designed to educate ob-gyns about the symptoms of prenatal mood disorders so they can identify the problem early. Lusskin says even though depression-screening tests are helpful, asking the patient simple questions about her mood can go a long way. "There is no substitute for asking the patient how she feels," she says...
...Lusskin, she says that for depressed women who fall in the high-risk category - those with a history of chronic mood disorders, for example, like Jamie Nesi - antidepressant medications may be necessary. She thinks the "risks of untreated ailments are known and may be worse than the potential harmful effects of taking the drug...
...many women with less severe cases of depression may opt to forgo medications. Ariela Frieder, a psychiatrist at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., says treatment for these women should be geared toward the particular stress factors and contributors to their mood disorder. "We tend to think of depression as having multiple origins. It could be due to the circumstances in her life, there could be a genetic factor, or the woman could have a history of depression," says Frieder, who patient-tailors treatments that involve a combination of psychotherapy, support groups, yoga, exercise, peer counseling and, if needed...