Quote:
Originally posted by CrimsonTide4
So mothers, is it post partum to call your baby all those names?
|
http://www.obgyn.net/femalepatient/d...p?page=leopold
At the mildest end of the spectrum is the "maternity blues" or "baby blues." Because this condition arises after 40% to 85% of deliveries, practitioners and patients often view it as a "normal" phenomenon. Nonetheless, patients and their families are distressed by the patients' depressed mood, irritability, anxiety, confusion, crying spells, mood lability, and disturbances in sleep and appetite. These symptoms peak between postpartum days 3 and 5, and typically resolve spontaneously within 24 to 72 hours. The primary treatment is supportive care and reassurance about the transient nature of the condition
At the other end of the spectrum is the truly devastating puerperal psychosis. A comparatively rare disease, it complicates only 0.1% to 0.2% of deliveries--but this is 12 to 14.5 times the prenatal incidence of psychosis.6,9 Symptoms generally present within the first 4 weeks postpartum, when the risk of hospitalization is 22 times greater, but can manifest up to 90 days after delivery. A second, smaller, peak in incidence is evident at 18 to 24 months. Patients suffering from puerperal psychosis are severely impaired, suffering from hallucinations and delusions that frequently focus on the infant dying or being divine or demonic. These hallucinations often command the patient to hurt herself or others, placing these mothers at the highest risk for committing infanticide and/or suicide. Most of these patients suffer from affective disorders (primarily bipolar illness), but schizophrenia and even organic brain syndromes are also diagnosed.