In 2020, the State Council issued the "Work Plan for Exploring Special Services for the Prevention and Treatment of Depression", proposing to increase the intervention of maternal depression and make postpartum depression a hot topic again. In recent years, people have paid more and more attention to postpartum depression, and the incidence of postpartum depression images in TV news, film and television works has also increased year by year. In the traditional thinking of older generations, postpartum depression is often discussed as a "correction" or "finding fault".
So what exactly is postpartum depression? How should we deal with postpartum depression?
Postpartum depression refers to depression that occurs after childbirth and may be unipolar or, less commonly, bipolar disorder.
In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition, postpartum depression is described as a clinical depressive symptom that begins during perinatal periods, with symptoms often accompanied by prolonged periods of low mood, anhedonia, depression, irritability, irritability, tears, decreased social interaction, decreased sense of self-worth, increased sense of meaninglessness in life, insomnia or burnout, loss of appetite, weight loss, and in severe cases even a tendency to attack, self-harm, or suicide. It is called "perinatal" because 50% of patients with postpartum major depressive disorder develop symptoms before childbirth.
Although postpartum depression has been in the public eye for a long time, in the current diagnostic criteria for mental illness, postpartum depression is not considered an independent diagnosis by the current classification system. In general, depression that occurs within 6 to 12 months after childbirth can be considered postpartum depression.
Therefore, postpartum depression is not a "temperamental" disease, but a common mental illness discovered by professional research.
In fact, as one of many common psychiatric disorders, studies have shown that more than 80% of the onset population is mild. If supplemented by positive counseling or treatment, it can often resolve on its own within 1 to 6 months, and generally does not have much impact on normal life. However, if it is a serious illness, it is necessary to see a doctor in time and take the medicine according to the doctor's order after being evaluated by the doctor to avoid tragedy.
Although psychiatry and psychology have paid a lot of attention and research on postpartum depression, allowing us to face the impact of postpartum depression and postpartum depression with the cognition of "pathology" and "psychologicalization", we still cannot ignore the potential social root causes of mental illness.
Scholar Yang Kun believes that modern society is a psychology and "spiritual governance" society, if you look at the psychological deviations of each individual from the perspective of "pathology", then the results are always personalized, and the social structure, social processes and extensive economic and cultural assessment behind it will be excluded from the scope of interpretation, so it is easy to be ignored. For postpartum depression, feminism raises questions about the diagnostic criteria for pathology.
Feminists believe that every woman is born in a "motherhood myth" created by society. Motherhood, both physically and socially, is seen as an innate ability of women. Whether it is the Internet, television, magazines or other mass media, you can often see such a female image: changing the diapers of children with their hands and feet and holding their children to work in front of the computer, which is actually a stressful scene, but the mothers in the photos are happy and calm; the mothers prepare meals for naughty children with warm smiles on their faces. These scenes can be seen everywhere in social life, and it conveys the message that raising offspring is the most fulfilling career for women, and that women should show positive emotional responses, and such a "motherhood myth" is internalized by women into a perfectionist standard for themselves, leaving women under great social pressure, and this social pressure is the social root of postpartum depression.
Feminists therefore argue that any difficulty in maternal status for women, including postpartum depression, is a social problem and that medical intervention and socially conscious progress should go hand in hand.
First of all, for all patients with mental illness, regular review, taking medicine according to the doctor's instructions is the most important, we must help postpartum depressed patients understand their diseases, eliminate prejudices about diseases, and good understanding is the first step to cure.
Secondly, for the family, it is crucial to help patients liberate themselves from the housework of raising children, go out for walks and activities more, and rebuild the sense of meaning of life; improve communication between family members, improve the support given by family members, and socialize more, and the patient's mood can often be more stable.
Finally, as mentioned above, the social pressures faced by women are the social root cause of postpartum depression, so in addition to urging patients to take medication and emotional attention in a timely manner, a more inclusive environment for women is also crucial. The progress of the social environment is a process, but as a family environment in which individuals live together day and night, improvements can be immediate, for example, breaking the traditional gender division of labor in the family, and the husband's participation in infant rearing and housework. An equal, inclusive and well-intentioned environment is a good medicine for the soul.
author
Zhao Yifei | Department of Social Work, Shanghai University
bibliography:
[1] American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fifth Edition), Peking University Press, 2014
Yang Cheng. From "Personality Worship" to "Autonomous Self": The Psychologization of Society and the Governance of the Mind[J].Sociological Research,2019,34(01):57-83+243
Wu Miao,Tang Wenpei. Postpartum Depression: Mindset or Pathology[J].Natural Dialectics Communications, 2022, 44(03): 82-88
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