PMS Guide |

It has been estimated that about 50 percent of the women who give birth experience what is called the postpartum blues at some point during the first ten days of their new motherhood. When these “blues” arrive, a woman really feels let down. She experiences fatigue, lethargy, disappointment, nervousness, and a general dissatisfaction with her life. She wants to cry and she usually loses the struggle to fight back her tears.

Most women get over their postpartum depressions in a few days, but approximately 7 to 10 percent of new mothers have severe cases. Their depression seem to be long-term and their symptoms appear to be very similar to the anxiety-connected PMT-A symptoms of premenstrual syndrome.

The causes of the postpartum blues have never been exactly known. Different women suffer different degrees of depression after childbirth, depressions which completely unrelated to the length and intensity of their labors, In the past, it has said that the postpartum blues arrive because once a woman gives birth she has to relinquish her spot as the center of attention to her baby, and when her position changes, she becomes depressed. Other theories blame the blues on a combination of sudden physical changes that include fatigue after childbirth, anemia, and a shift in hormones that have been steady for nine months.

Often, awareness helps women deal with the onset of postpartum depression. Women who realize that they are suffering the well-known  after childbirth blues have felt better when they have modified their diets and exercised. Since the symptoms of postpartum blues are akin to the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome, they usually respond to similar treatments.

The fact is, however, that although no one can say definitely why, women who have postpartum depressions often become PMS sufferers. Both conditions are probably due to hormonal imbalance. Certainly the awareness, exercise, and diet consciousness that help women during the postpartum blues are also beneficial during premenstrual syndrome. But in PMS cases that are extremely severe, women have reportedly responded best to progesterone treatments. The female hormone progesterone, which is high and steady during pregnancy, probably is one reason why a woman might feel so good at the end of her nine months, just before her postpartum crash. There are times when progesterone seems emotionally return women to those pleasant, pre-childbirth days.