How To Overcome Perinatal And Postpartum Feelings Of Sadness

All people experience moments of sadness. For most people, these feelings persist for only hours or days. Almost one-fifth of the world's population, however, are diagnosed with clinical depression, which causes depression that lasts for weeks, months, or longer. These feelings cause the person to develop impaired functioning in work, family, or social interactions, which can become severe.

Females who experience signs of depression after becoming pregnant are sometimes diagnosed with perinatal depression. This condition can develop any time after pregnancy begins, or any time thereafter, until the infant is a year old. Usually, however, women who develop this condition after childbirth are diagnosed with postpartum depression.

Perinatal depression or postpartum depression results from numerous factors. These factors can be physical. For instance, mothers with a previous or family history of clinical depression or mental illness are very likely to experience perinatal depression or postpartum depression. Furthermore, alterations in hormone levels after childbirth, like decreases in estrogen and progesterone amounts, can cause depression. Postpartum thyroid problems can result in symptoms of depression such as tiredness, negative moods, and despair.

Often, mental depression results from psychological issues. Women often are tired and overwhelmed in learning to cope with the demands made by the new child. These feelings are often increased by the absence of assistance from family, friends, or significant other. Financial problems can also assist in causing postpartum depression.

Perinatal depression and postpartum depression can have grave consequences for both the woman and the new baby. Anxiety and depression can hinder a woman from connecting completely with her infant or being able to meet her baby's physical and emotional needs. This can further compound the mother's feelings of worthlessness, self-blame, and low self-worth.

The infant is also stressed by the new mother's condition. Failure to bond with his or her mom can cause the baby to experience trust problems in emotional attachments throughout life. Further, infants who do not get their physical or emotional needs met may fail to grow and develop normally. This problem, called "failure to thrive," can be very serious or even deadly to the infant.

Perinatal depression or postpartum depression can harm the entire family. The spouse or partner can feel ignored or powerless to relieve these depression symptoms. This can irreparably hurt their relationship. Other children in the family often experience comparable feelings, and exhibit academic or peer difficulties as well.

Depression damages the whole family. For this reason, mothers experiencing perinatal depression or postpartum depression need to get depression treatment as soon as possible. Numerous techniques can be used, including counseling and medication therapy. Medicines, however, are sometimes dangerous for nursing babies, and may have unpredictable outcomes due to the tremendous hormonal fluctuations a mother experiences during these hectic times. Moreover, traditional counseling therapies are usually lengthy and costly.

Two therapies for dealing with depression that do not involve medicines and often rapidly demonstrate dramatically beneficial outcomes are hypnotherapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. Traditional Hypnotherapy is most effective for individuals who are easily entranced or can accept ideas without feeling a need to analyze or understand them. Ericksonian hypnosis is very effective for those who tend to overanalyze. These strategies allow clients to unwind and get rid of tension.

For people who are more critical or analytical thinkers, NLP is usually more beneficial. Using this technique, trained professionals give individuals depression help by assisting them to restructure their thought processes. This strategy can, very literally, assist a client think through the depressive mood and conquer it.

Individuals can conquer depression by mastering NLP tools like anchoring. They learn to remember situations when they felt happy and in control of their circumstances. Remembering the memory renews these feelings. Clients are instructed to put two fingers together while experiencing these emotions. The unconscious mind relates the touch of the two fingers with the feelings. Therefore, the finger touch becomes an "anchor."

Then, when the client starts to feel overwhelmed, he or she triggers the anchor by touching these same two fingers together again. This elicits feelings of self-control and results in empowerment.

By using another approach called the Flash, clients discover how to reason away negative emotions. They teach their unconscious minds to automatically substitute positive thoughts for negative ones. When negative thoughts develop, the mind automatically exchanges them for positive thoughts. After learning this strategy, clients find it almost impossible to conjure up negative thoughts!

Summary: Perinatal depression and postpartum depression often have disastrous results for a woman and her new infant. The rest of their family is also profoundly affected because of these problems. Due to the possible gravity of the consequences of this condition, females with depression need to get help as soon as symptoms begin. Two very beneficial approaches that do not use medicine or great outlays of time and money are hypnotherapy and NLP.