Understanding Baby Blues: How Happy Is Motherhood?

The beautiful experience of childbirth is not only about first kicks, sweet loud cries and embracing those tiny miracles. It is also a strenuous time filled with anxiety, emotional upheavals, fear and trepidation

- Shruti Shukla

 

The significant role of women as nurtures is as big a responsibility as it is a blessing. What we regard as one of the most transformative periods of a woman’s life – a period full of joy and fulfillment – is also a time that comes with a big share of struggles that we might not be acknowledging fully. Most women convince themselves that they have to accept the physical pain they go through during pregnancy like badges of honour. Emotional distress, on the contrary, is often buried as a sign of weakness. It’s time we stop regarding baby blues as a stigma and accept it as the serious complication that it is.

Maternal depression can be both, prenatal or antepartum that affects a woman during pregnancy and postpartum that occurs soon after childbirth. “It is a more common condition than we realise, seen in eight per cent to 20 percent of women who undergo pregnancy,” confirms Dr Parul Tank, Psychiatrist, specialist in women and children mental health at Fortis Hospital, Mumbai.

“All pregnancies come with their share of nausea, exhaustion, tiredness, and doubts; some are tougher than others. Mental instability like depression can also occur. Unfortunately, women and families are not prepared for this and neither are they able to diagnose it.” Dr Parul explains.

Depression during or after pregnancy is in no way a measure of the mother in you and the immense love that you have for your little one. It is a mental condition that requires proper treatment in order to lead a happy motherhood and raise healthy kids. “When one is depressed self-care is low, which often translates to low care for the newborn, leading to other difficulties,” warns Dr Parul. However, depression is easily treatable once it is diagnosed.

Recognise the symptoms