Most women experience the baby blues after giving birth, with symptoms like insomnia, irritability and mood swings. This feeling usually peaks around the fourth day postpartum and goes away after a week or two. For some women, however, the much more serious post partum depression can follow this temporary and mild depression.
Symptoms of Post Partum Depression
Symptoms of post partum depression usually follow post partum blues, although it can happen months later. Sometimes, symptoms build over a period of months. Symptoms of post partum depression include:
- Loss of pleasure in daily activities
- Appetite and weight change
- Depressed moods, including an empty feeling, hopelessness, tears and sometimes severe anxiety
- A change in the way you speak and move, sometimes called sluggishness
- Extreme loss of energy
- Feelings of guilt with no cause
- Difficulty concentrating
- Thoughts of suicide or death. Sometimes the symptoms of post partum depression include fleeting thoughts of harming the child, although this rarely represents a real urge to harm.
Symptoms of Post Partum Psychosis
Post partum psychosis is very similar to post partum depression but is extremely severe. It’s most common in women who have a history of the disorder or bipolar disorder. Symptoms usually develop during the first three weeks and include:
- Disturbed sleep
- Extremely disorganized thinking with a risk of hurting yourself or the baby
- Drastic mood changes and strange behavior
- Depersonalization, or feelings of being removed from everyone
- Extreme restlessness
- Hallucinations involving touch, sight, smell or hearing
- Delusional thinking
Symptoms of Post Partum Depression After Baby
Linear Mode
