Читать книгу Parents Who Kill - Shocking True Stories of The World's Most Evil Parents - Carol Anne Davis - Страница 20

Giving birth can be a challenging experience which leaves the new mother physically and emotionally exhausted. This low state is compounded five days later when oestrogen and progesterone, which have been up to a thousand times their normal level, drop back to their pre-pregnancy state. Such huge changes in the endocrinal system cause spontaneous bouts of weeping in three-quarters of women, a condition colloquially known as the baby blues.

The majority of mothers recover within a couple of days, but up to 10 per cent go on to suffer post-natal depression with symptoms which include fatigue, insomnia, anxiety and loss of appetite. Thyroid problems brought on by the pregnancy can also cause low mood and lethargy. Half of this depressed 10 per cent will require psychiatric care, either in hospital or on an outpatient basis.

Fortunately, only two mothers in a thousand actually suffer a psychotic episode, in which they lose touch with reality, as a result of post-natal (also known as post-partum) depression.

Women who come from families with a history of psychiatric illness are up to 80 per cent more likely to suffer an episode of severe post-natal psychoses than women without such histories. Unfortunately, a new mother who suffers such a depressive episode is 50 per cent more likely to suffer a recurrence in subsequent pregnancies.

Though they have originally looked forward to motherhood, a small number of these temporarily-psychotic mothers kill their babies and, sometimes, themselves.

In other instances, clinical levels of depression aren’t necessarily hormonal, instead being caused by the woman’s situation: a poor marriage or relationship, bad housing, poverty and the lack of a supportive mother figure can all contribute to feelings of anger and hopelessness.