Depression After Childbirth: How to Recognise, Treat, and Prevent Postnatal Depression

"I still cannot believe the contrasts between the two births. Every day was filled with relief and joy that the terrible unhappy time before had not come back...I now feel cheated of the closeness and happiness I could have enjoyed with my first baby."--From a letter written by a woman given progesterone therapy before the birth of her second child. It is estimated that eight out of ten mothers go through a period of `post-baby blues' and that one in ten suffer from a more serious form of postnatal depression. It is never easy for the mother or for her family and friends to understand exactly what is happening, and to distinguish between the relatively mild `blues' and the more severe cases of depression. In this book Katharina Dalton, an international authority on premenstrual syndrome and postnatal depression and pioneer of hormone therapy, describes the whole spectrum of symptoms, discusses the social and psychological as well as the hormonal factors, and shows how this debilitating and sometimes deadly disease can not only be treated but also prevented. This book is designed to serve the information needs of women who have suffered or are suffering from postnatal depression, their families and friends, and can also be valuable for physicians, midwives, health visitors, community psychiatric nurses, obstetricians, and psychiatrists.