Many persons view postpartum depression as a condition that affects just the new mother. This, however, is not true. The entire family experiences relationship issues that affect family dynamics drastically. Depressed moms who do not seek help often place their infants in danger of experiencing serious or fatal setbacks in growth and development.
The medical name for this complicated problem is nonorganic failure to thrive. Nonorganic means that there is no medical cause for the infant’s delays. As a result of the mother’s postpartum depression, she often stops meeting the infant’s physical and psychological needs. Although the infant may cry for food at first, he or she often loses interest and stops relating to other people. This condition may cause nutritional problems, starvation, or even death.
Physicians use growth charts to track a baby’s physical growth in height, weight, and head size. If the infant is in good health from birth, his or her size will be within the normal values on the growth charts. If the infant starts to have serious growth delays, this will appear when tracking his or her progress with normal growth charts. Once an infant’s growth is below the fifth percentile, doctors become seriously concerned.
Other signs often appear before an infant’s growth problems reach this critical point. Most infants who develop at a normal rate are interested in their environment. In contrast, infants who fail to thrive show little or no interest in their environment. These infants do not usually make sounds or words; they have stopped trying to respond to their caregivers.
How much of a problem is this condition? If not treated properly, the baby may starve, and even die. Even if the baby grows enough to remain alive, his or her muscles, bone, and mind cannot grow enough. Additionally, even if they are treated, these babies do not “catch up” entirely. They often acquire relationship issues or eating conditions, even after they begin to have their needs met.
Babies who failure to thrive often become gravely ill from malnutrition. They are often hospitalized for weeks or months. Sometimes, they become so weakened that feeding from a bottle is too tiring. They get feedings via a tube placed in their stomachs, or even in their veins to get food!
The most tragic aspect of this condition is that it can be easily prevented. If moms with postpartum depression recognize this problem at its onset, they are able to seek help and do not have to subject their helpless infants to these terrible complications. Indeed, studies have shown that ninety percent of the women who suffer from depression who get help will find healing!
A number of approaches are used to treat postpartum depression. Many doctors use medications like antidepressants. These medicines are costly. Nursing mothers should also avoid them. Furthermore, these drugs sometimes cause thoughts of suicide; these medications should be used with great care.
Frequently, doctors encourage psychotherapy instead of or in addition to medications. Counseling, however, is costly. Additionally, it often requires a lot of extra time, and several weeks may go by before this treatment begins to help. Regrettably, depending on the severity of the woman’s depression, this may be too long for her baby. If the baby starts showing growth delays, extra therapies may be required.
Luckily, other non-drug therapy options can be used. Two revolutionary, beneficial methods that typically yield positive outcomes much faster than psychotherapy, and are much less dangerous than medicine, are Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and hypnotherapy for depression. NLP and hypnosis typically start to work after only one session. In addition, they cost much less than other methods.
Moms who suspect they have postpartum depression must get help immediately so that their infants are not at risk for critical growth problems. The severity of the effects on the infant demands that the treatment work quickly, and be very effective. NLP and hypnosis for depression are inexpensive, work quickly, and are extremely effective. This makes these two treatments ideal for treating postpartum depression.
Summary: Postpartum depression is depression that occurs after childbirth. New moms are not able to give their infants the caring they need to survive and thrive. This causes failure to thrive, a serious, possibly fatal condition, which hurts the baby. Women who suspect that they might have postpartum depression should get help as soon as possible. Hypnosis and NLP for depression are inexpensive and are extremely effective.
Alan B. Densky, CH specializes in depression and stress related symptoms as a certified hypnotherapist and NLP Practitioner. He’s helped thousands of clients since 1978. He supplies self-hypnosis therapy for depression MP3s. Visit his self-hypnosis website for the hypnosis article repository, or watch his free video hypnosis collection.
– Alan Densky