British Prime Minister David Cameron announced yesterday a package of social reforms, including the urgent need to treat postpartum depression in women. He announced that all pregnant women will have a mental health specialist who will follow up during pregnancy and after the baby is born.
Postpartum depression is an invisible disease, often underestimated, that affects between 10 and 25% of recent mothers, in the United Kingdom there are 44,000 women who suffer from any depressive symptoms before or after giving birth.
When a woman becomes a mother she is supposed to feel full and happy, but many recent mothers experience feelings of discomfort, sadness, irritability, melancholy or anxiety in the first days after birth. It can stay in a "baby blues", or extend over time and become a postpartum depression.
But many times it is difficult to recognize it and much more ask for help. It is therefore important that women have professional support throughout pregnancy, as the United Kingdom promises, that they can monitor and detect possible alarm signals.
Pregnancy is not a process that only needs to be treated from a physical point of view, it is a complex process both physically and emotionally, an aspect that is not usually taken into account. That's whyIt's an example to take the British government to allocate resources to treat the mental health of the pregnant woman.
He also announced that paternity courses will be given, the treatment of adolescents with eating disorders will be improved and general investment in the treatment of mental illness will be invested.
Via | BBC
In Babies and more | Testimonies of mothers who have suffered postpartum depression: you are not alone, ask for help
