Seeking Help for Depression and Postpartum Depression

I’m currently reviewing Dr. Ruta Nonac’s A Deeper Shade of Blue, “a woman’s guide to recognizing and treating depression in her childbearing years.”

Early in the book, within the first chapter, Dr. Nonac’s made these important points about seeking depression treatment and about postpartum depression:

People who suffer from depression often are “discouraged” from seeking help for their depression because they may be told that what they are experiencing is normal, not serious, and / or go away.

Dr. Nonac states that depression is never “normal” and should never be ignored. Dr. Nonac in fact re-emphasizes this in other chapters of her book. Although Dr. Nonac’s book is about depression during a woman’s childbearing process, and thus is focused on the woman audience, this premise about seeking help for depression applies readily to men who suffer from depression.

Postpartum depression resources, and information about depression during pregnancy and during nursing, remain scarce.

It wasn’t long ago when we saw Brooke Shields’ and Tom Cruise’s public spat about postpartum depression and whether psychiatric conditions were made up by evil drug companies (according to Tom, psych conditions were imaginary). Other incidents of postpartum depression had come into our public consciousness as horrendous crimes committed by the mother to her children. This does not bode well for women who suffer from postpartum depression, because they were now afraid of being classified in the same group as those mothers. The positive thing is that this publicity brought postpartum depression to primetime, and Brooke’s public admission about her postpartum depression helped dampen some of the social stigma around postpartum depression.

However, information about what happens to a woman with depression during pregnancy and and during nursing is scarce. Women with a history of depression not only worry about their chances of experiencing postpartum depression, but also face questions like, “should I stop taking my antidepressants while I’m pregnant?” and “Should I wait until I finish nursing to start taking antidepressants again?” These are questions unique to women who are no stranger to depression, and are now facing childbearing decisions.