Postpartum blues and postpartum depression. You have to know how to differentiate them.

Throughout pregnancy, a woman's body changes in every way. Not only is your physical form affected; your brain has changed and the balance of hormones in the body is totally upset. After childbirth, what is known as puerperal sadness may appear. It is something quite common in mothers, whether they are new or not. It should not be overlooked as it is possible that it will evolve into postpartum depression, which are big words.

These feelings are the result of the drop in hormones that the newly born women. The placenta has been a storehouse for hormones throughout pregnancy. Once it disappears, something explodes inside us. Our body must be in charge of stabilizing everything again. The placenta will no longer be helping us and therefore the drop in estrogen leads us to feel this state of melancholy, also known as the "baby blues." We are going to see the differences between these two states in mothers, since it is important to differentiate them:

Puerperal sadness

It appears approximately between the third and fourth day after giving birth. This is the time when the drop in hormones has reached its peak. Although it appears early, its duration is usually not more than a fortnight. There are women who have only felt this kind of sadness for just a few days. Symptoms are mild; there are no very serious feelings about the new life that happens. Irritability and distress are common, and it is normal for the mother to cry suddenly.

There are also digestive symptoms; poor appetite or, on the contrary, anxiety about food as a means of escape. All this is also mixed with the lack of sleep, which will accompany the mother during the first months of the baby's life. Even if 8 out of 10 women are affected, it is necessary to support them and show them empathy. Understand and help them, know what they are going through, in order to face an early recovery.

A puerperal sadness can progress to postpartum depression if symptoms get worse and worse and the mother continues to receive no support and understanding from anyone. In this case we would have another type of "problem" to face.

Postpartum depression

Unlike postpartum blues, postpartum depression appears almost a month after the baby is born. It may also appear at any time after birth, without restricting only this time to the beginning of the postpartum. There are cases of women diagnosed with depression 1 year after having their baby born. It is a problem that will last for months and requires a lot of patience.

The symptoms are very intense. Sadness is the most remarkable thing; It is a very "dark" type of sadness, so deep that it seems to have no solution. Women with postpartum depression can have a variety of seizures, including intense crying and the dreaded panic attacks. These are very similar to anxiety attacks, with the difference that they appear without prior notice to the person suffering from them and increase in intensity over time.

One of the things they suffer and that I always comment on in my posts is the feeling of guilt they have. Although we have all had it once, these women feel bad about everything they do to the point of thinking that their children would live better if they were not alive. They are not able at those times to cope with the arduous task of caring for their child, so the impotence and the feeling of failure is such that it worsens his mood much more.

We must not ignore these signs in a mother who has a child under 1 year old; and even if he is older. Depression is a serious mental disorder from which a way out is often not easily found.. In addition, many women see themselves alone since partners, family and friends do not give it importance. Hopefully with this post, we start caring for mothers before they get to this point and we don't have to see any more heartbreaking news due to a problem invisible to many. They are not women who have stories and who do not want to take care of their baby; they are women with a serious illness who need help.