Postpartum Depression In Nursing

Postpartum depression following the birth of a baby has a multitude of detrimental effects on the quality of life of both the mother and child over the course of their lifetimes. According to the American Psychiatric Association (2000), postpartum depression (PPD) is defined as “an onset of clinical depressive symptoms occurring within four weeks of giving birth and is often diagnosed when symptoms occur within twelve months of a child’s birth.” Many women often experience severe anxiety about being alone with the infant, mood swings, feelings of sadness and in some extreme cases, bizarre delusions that can last anywhere between a few months or a year, depending on the individual. Infants are extremely vulnerable to the anxiety, frustration, …show more content…
PPD is the “most common complication of childbearing, occurring in as many as 15% of women in the United States during the postpartum period, with some sources suggesting that the true incidence may be higher” (DelRosario, Chang, & Lee, 2013, p. 51). These developmental and emotional issues often impact children’s overall chances of long-term success and can lead to lower levels of education, and increased risks of poverty, failure to thrive, and mental and physical disorders. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of postpartum depression on infants and ways that nurses can detect and support mothers who might be suffering from this serious disorder.
Research by Ali, Mahmud, Khan, & Ali (2013) compared children of postpartum depressed mothers with children from a community sample in terms of a broad range of developmental outcomes. The researchers …show more content…
The five subscales studied included socio-emotional level, language, cognitive level, gross motor, and fine motor development. A total of 420 women were enrolled in the study, and the participating women’s socio-demographic, home environment and family relationship variables were collected between 36 weeks of pregnancy and within 10 days of childbirth. The mother’s levels of anxiety and depression were assessed using an Aga Khan University Anxiety and Depression Scale (AKUADS), as well as an interview session by a psychologist using a DSM-IV, at one, two, six, twelve, eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty months of childbirth. This research study showed a significant association of postpartum anxiety and depression with delayed development on all five subscales of children’s mental development. The study showed that if the mother was depressed, “the child was six times more at risk of being delayed for emotional development relative to when the mother was not depressed” (Doesum et al., 2012, p. 282). This finding could be a result of the mother being preoccupied with her own feelings of hopelessness, causing her to miss infant cues and be withdrawn or disengaged.

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