Post
partum depression comes to many women after giving birth to their children. Being
a mother who has delivered a child, I have been part of the statistics of
falling into postpartum depression. There
are many factors that lead to postpartum depression (PPD). This has become a serious health issue that has
even led to suicide in some new mothers.
It has been shown that up to 15% of women are affected by PPD, which also
leads to the child being affected negatively with depressive behaviors, as
well. Some of PPD, can result from hormonal
changes at many levels. When I was
brought home with my new baby, I could feel a deep sadness within myself, I
thought, I should be happy to bring home such a beautiful gift. Learning that the hormonal level changes significantly
changed in a female’s body after delivering a child, made sense. I felt my emotions were all over the place,
something so little as spilled milk made me cry or simply just made me so upset,
it would take a while to calm down, these are characteristics of having PPD. There
was little treatment for a new mother like myself. I was offered antidepressants but heard and
learned of all the side effects and how addicting these medications can be
after taking them for a while. I was
then offered an alternative treatment which was psychological help, which I feel
was the most helpful in my case. PPD can
be associated genetically with the regulation of the HPA axis, sex hormones and
the effects for the prefrontal cortex resulting in stress. Genetic etiology was tested using the
genome-wide data related to postpartum mood disorders, which found variations
in chromosomes 1 and 9. These
chromosomes effect mood symptoms. Genes HMCN1
and METTL13 were found to contain polymorphisms which are also related to
postpartum symptoms. With epigenetic
variations, as well as psychosocial and biological factors being a high complexity
to the cause of PPD, there is room for more studies that can catch PPD through
studying other biomarkers because every women’s body functions and reacts
differently in order to be remedied of PPD.
Work Cited:
Yu, Yi et al. “Postpartum Depression: Current Status and Possible Identification Using Biomarkers.” Frontiers in psychiatry vol. 12 620371. 11 Jun. 2021, doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2021.620371
Thank you so much for sharing this personal story. Postpartum depression is a really scary thing, especially when there is not a clear answer to how it can be solved. While you did mention some of the genetic factors that can lead to post partum depression, one study I found looked at some of the other external factors, which include previous history of mental health as well as substance abuse. I wonder if we are able to learn more about what normally causes depression if it would be easy to translate that research over to postpartum depression, or if they are more separate than one might originally believe.
ReplyDeleteSource:
Kępińska AP, Robakis TK, Humphreys K, Liu X, Kahn RS, Munk-Olsen T, Bergink V, Mahjani B. Familial risk of postpartum psychosis. medRxiv [Preprint]. 2023 Jul 26:2023.07.20.23292910. doi: 10.1101/2023.07.20.23292910. PMID: 37546727; PMCID: PMC10402213.
I can't imagine how difficult this was for you! As one with three younger sisters, I have seen this affect my mother as well as my aunts with very similar responses! I appreciate you making your post personal and sharing with us all as well! It is crazy to me that up to 15% of women develop postpartum depression especially when it is common throughout my family. I found an article that found genetic factors and environmental factors that make women more susceptible in developing PPD. One of these genetic factors was a polymorphism in serotonin receptor 2A. Some environmental factors include a difficult pregnancy and a past medical history of depression. Check out the rest of this article, it is really interesting!
ReplyDeleteEl-Ibiary, S. Y., Hamilton, S. P., Abel, R., Erdman, C. A., Robertson, P. A., & Finley, P. R. (2013). A pilot study evaluating genetic and environmental factors for postpartum depression. Innovations in clinical neuroscience, 10(9-10), 15–22.