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Helpless Mothers

By Khadija Barkat Ali

The process of becoming a mother is full of pleasure, surprises and excitement, but many a times this rejoicing moments change into a life threatening episode for the mothers who newly deliver their babies but wrongly assume that they are incompetent in nurturing their infant.
This usually occurs when the mothers experience depression in their postpartum period.

Similar was the case which I had encountered during my psychiatric clinical in one of the hospital of the city.
I met a woman who was 26 years of age and had given birth to her first baby girl 40 days back. After delivering her child she started behaving in unusual way for instance, she started using abusive language towards her family members, putting off her clothes in front of everyone and started crying for no obvious reasons. She used to remain quite for the whole day without eating or drinking anything. At one night it was very cold, when she put off her baby’s clothes and placed her baby on the floor. When family members tried to stop her, she turned violent. Her sister then grabbed her and tied her. When her annoying behavior had increased than usual, her family members instead of helping her out and without identifying the reason behind her behavior called her PAGAL (mad) and took her to psychiatric ward.

In the hospital she was diagnosed as having post partum depression. It was communicated to the family that the depression has taken its worst form and now the woman needed immense care and support.
There are numerous such cases that one comes across while working in a health care setting.

Post partum depression is a common depressive illness that most of the women experience following the child birth. The unique difference between the general depression and the postpartum depression is the time period of its occurrence.

Many women experience mild depressive symptoms shortly after birth and these are called “baby blues”.

Baby blues are mild changes in woman’s behavior for example, mild depression, being anxious or upset, and tearfulness for no apparent reason, difficulty sleeping or worrying for minor things. These symptoms can last for few hours to few weeks and it doesn’t interfere with the mother’s daily function (Baksh, Egger, Kim, McGarry and Sheng, 2009) but when baby blues are not treated, it can end up into postpartum depression and it has a long lasting impact on women’s life, her bond with the newborn and her relationships.

The common symptoms that the mother might exhibit in the state of post partum depression includes depressed mood, lack of interest in performing almost all activities of daily life for example cooking, washing, cleaning, feeding the baby, inability to sleep or sleeping for more than usual number of hours, reduced self esteem, low confidence level, low energy level, feelings of guilt, lack of strength and concentration and inferring the thoughts of suicide (Arthur and Klainin, 2009).

Postpartum depression is very common in our society but most of the time it remains hidden. I have seen many women who had suffered through the hardest time after delivering their babies. The time after a woman gives birth, should be so that she is given time to rest, opportunities to learn new skills to nurture her baby and is given additional love, care and respect from the husband, in laws and other close ones.

I have seen many families in which women is considered just a machine of delivering babies, her right for accessing health care is not granted and if women suffer from the disease or unusual conditions then instead of helping her out, she is blamed for her conditions.
I have seen many women who had suffered from postpartum depression and the common reasons behind their conditions were poor relationship with husband and in laws, insufficient support from friends and family, Feeling negative about pregnancy, sufferers of domestic violence, personal or family history of depression or another mental illness and teenage pregnancies (Arthur and Klainin, 2009).

Just like the general depression, postpartum depression can be treated and women can live their life as before.

There are various interventions for example, support, education and medications (Baksh, Egger, Kim, McGarry and Sheng, 2009) that can help women to come out of her conditions.

The important point to consider here is the awareness regarding these mental conditions among the members of our society. Most of the members of our society are unaware that these conditions exist among women. They are not able to recognize the symptoms and hence they do not seek help.

On the other hand, some people are still aware but they restrict women from seeking help due to barriers present for instance, family and cultural restrictions. These restrictions and suppression of rights can become life threatening for the mother as well as for the child.

The major role that the health care professionals particularly public health care professionals can play here is the early identification of the symptoms and creating timely awareness among people regarding this mental illness. Media campaigns and distribution of educational material (Baksh, Egger, Kim, McGarry and Sheng, 2009) among women can also be helpful, in addition, women should be encouraged to visit hospitals during antenatal period so that in that stage women can be educated regarding the complications of pregnancy including postpartum depression. Consequently it can be sorted out before it adversely affects mothers. Moreover women’s rights should be respected and granted with respect.

If we all join hands to protect mothers of our nation, we will be able to develop our society more effectively. Motherhood is the dream of every woman; let it become reality with love, care and respect.