All people experience feelings of sadness. Usually, these occasions persist for a few hours or days. Nearly one-fifth of the world's population, however, are diagnosed with major depression, which causes depression that lasts for weeks, months, or longer. These feelings cause the person to develop problems functioning in work, family, or interpersonal relationships, which can become disabling.
Females who have symptoms of depression after becoming pregnant are sometimes treated for perinatal depression. This illness may develop any time after a woman becomes pregnant, or any time thereafter, until the baby is one year old. Typically, however, women who encounter this problem after childbirth are diagnosed with postpartum depression.
Perinatal depression or postpartum depression is linked with a number of factors. These factors may be physical. For example, females with a personal or family history of severe depression or mental illness are more likely to experience perinatal depression or postpartum depression. Furthermore, alterations in hormone levels in postpartum mothers, like decreases in estrogen and progesterone levels, can cause this condition. After childbirth, thyroid problems sometimes cause symptoms of depression such as exhaustion, irritability, and hopelessness.
Sometimes, mental depression results from psychological issues. Women often are fatigued and stressed as they learn to cope with the needs of the new baby. Such feelings are further magnified by a lack of assistance from family, friends, or spouse. Money issues may also contribute to the development of postpartum depression.
Perinatal depression and postpartum depression often have grave outcomes for both the mother and the new baby. Anxiety and depression may prevent a mother from bonding completely with her child or being capable of meeting her infant's physical and emotional needs. This may worsen the mother's sense of worthlessness, guilt, and low self-worth.
The infant is also harmed by the new mother's condition. An inability to connect with his or her mother may result in the baby to experience trust issues in personal attachments throughout life. Further, infants who do not get their physical or emotional needs met may fail to grow and develop properly. This condition, known as "failure to thrive," may be very serious or even fatal to the infant.
Perinatal depression or postpartum depression can affect everyone in the family. The spouse or significant other sometimes feels ignored or unable to help the woman's depression symptoms. This may irreparably damage their partnership. Older kids in the family often experience similar emotions, and develop academic or peer difficulties as well.
Depression affects the whole family. For this reason, mothers experiencing perinatal depression or postpartum depression need to get depression treatment as quickly as possible. Many treatments can be used, including counseling and drug treatments. Medicines, however, are often dangerous for nursing infants, and may have erratic results due to the great hormone fluctuations a mother experiences during these hectic times. Moreover, typical counseling treatments are usually time-consuming and costly.
Two approaches for dealing with depression that do not involve medicines and may quickly show incredibly beneficial results are hypnotherapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Traditional Hypnotherapy is most effective for persons who can be effortlessly hypnotized or able to accept ideas without needing to critique or understand them. Ericksonian Hypnotherapy is very useful for clients who often overanalyze. These strategies aid individuals to unwind and eliminate tension.
For people who are more critical or analytical individuals, NLP is usually more beneficial. With NLP, trained practitioners offer people depression help by helping them to reprogram their mental processes. This approach can, quite literally, aid a person think past the depressive state and overcome it.
People can overcome depression by learning NLP techniques like anchoring. They are coached to remember times when they felt happy and controlled their situations. Recalling the memory revives these emotions. People are coached to touch two fingers together and remember these feelings. The subconscious mind connects the touch of the two fingers with the emotions. Therefore, the finger touch becomes an "anchor."
Then, when the client begins to become stressed, he or she sparks the anchor by touching these identical two fingers together again. This elicits emotions of self-control and results in empowerment.
By using another strategy known as the Flash, individuals learn to think away harmful feelings. They instruct their subconscious minds to automatically substitute positive thoughts for negative ones. When negative thoughts develop, the brain automatically substitutes them for positive responses. After developing this technique, individuals find it nearly impossible to think negative thoughts!
Summary: Perinatal depression and postpartum depression may have disastrous effects for a mother and her new child. The rest of their family is also profoundly affected by these conditions. Because of the probable gravity of the outcomes of this disorder, women with depression need to get help as soon as signs develop. Two very beneficial treatments that do not require medicine or great outlays of time and money are hypnotherapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming.