The Lived Experience of Postpartum Depression: A Review of the Literature

Johnson, Samantha; Adam, Simon; McIntosh, Michele

doi:10.1080/01612840.2019.1688437

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…7 The contrast between expectations of successful motherhood or satisfaction in nurturing a new life, with the actualities of sleep deprivation, breastfeeding difficulty and infant crying, can lead to frustration, feelings of incompetence, reduced motivation and anger. 8,9 Despite the availability of effective treatments, few women will seek or engage with mental health services or programmes after birth, even when they are identified as depressed. 10,11 However, social and practical support can both attenuate negative thoughts that contribute to lower mood, and help reduce the demands of infant care.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The objective of this study was to identify and describe what mothers who are experiencing perinatal distress need from their partner—when mental illness symptoms were first emerging, when they were persistently overwhelmed by the illness and when symptoms were easing. The views of mothers with lived experience of perinatal mental distress 9 were sought via a non‐government perinatal mental health support service (Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia—PANDA). The findings from this study will inform the development of a supplemental set of SMS4dads messages, suitable for fathers whose partner is mentally distressed in the perinatal period.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mothers' reluctance to seek treatment is understandable given the complex psychological and social factors involved in perinatal mental illness 7 . The contrast between expectations of successful motherhood or satisfaction in nurturing a new life, with the actualities of sleep deprivation, breastfeeding difficulty and infant crying, can lead to frustration, feelings of incompetence, reduced motivation and anger 8,9 . Despite the availability of effective treatments, few women will seek or engage with mental health services or programmes after birth, even when they are identified as depressed 10,11 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Equipping fathers to support distressed mothers: What do mothers want fathers to know and do?

Fletcher

Regan

May

et al. 2023

Health Prom J of Aust

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Issue AddressedUp to one in five new mothers experience depression or anxiety, and their partners are often the first line of social and practical support. However, many fathers are unprepared for their role as support person. The SMS4dads program (www.sms4dads.com) provides text‐based support to new fathers but lacks specific messages addressing maternal mental distress.MethodsA mixed methods process engaged mothers with lived experience of perinatal mental distress to identify message content for co‐designing texts in SMS4dads. Participants completed surveys derived from research literature and parenting websites using the theoretical framework of support domains: emotional or affectionate support, informational support, tangible support and positive social interaction. Mothers also indicated the most appropriate timing of support: at the point of identifying the distress (emerging), with ongoing symptoms (persistent) or during recovery (easing). Free text comments from mothers were linked to survey topics to provide examples of wording suitable for text messages to fathers.ResultsFifty‐five mothers with lived experience completed the surveys. All support items were more often endorsed as helpful rather than not helpful by mothers. Emotional support was thought helpful in the early stages, tangible support was valued with ongoing symptoms and social interaction appreciated as symptoms eased.ConclusionsMothers experiencing perinatal depression and anxiety require a range of supportive actions by their partners, including household tasks and baby‐care, encouragement, listening and managing relationships with family and friends.So What?Information provided by distressed mothers can provide guidance to professionals when designing information for fathers/partners. Digital delivery of this co‐designed information to fathers across urban and rural areas may enhance the competence of fathers working to support mothers experiencing mental distress in the perinatal period.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Equipping fathers to support distressed mothers: What do mothers want fathers to know and do?

Fletcher

Regan

May

et al. 2023

Health Prom J of Aust

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“…This logic precludes the possibility that structural issues such as cycles of poverty, lack of access to education, transgenerational trauma, and sexism predispose certain women to socioeconomic demise, leading to what is psychiatrically understood as perinatal depression. The absence of mad epistemologies has been lamented by nursing scholars, calling for more focused attention to this troubling gap in postpartum depression discourse (Johnson et al, 2020). Another example comes from the Guideline text titled, Engaging Clients who use Substances , which makes clear that the definition of substance use disorder was adopted from the DSM.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infrahuman madness: Mental health nursing and the discursive production of alterity

et al. 2022

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By examining an exemplar sample of mental health nursing educational policies and related legislation, in this article, we trace the discursive production of madness as an “othered” identity category. We engage in a critical discourse analysis of mental health nursing education in Canada, drawing on provincial and federal policies and legislation as the main sources of data. Theoretically framed by critical posthumanism and mad studies, this article outlines how the mad subjectivity becomes decontextualized out of its identity‐based understanding and recontextualized as an inferior category of “the human,” circulating within discourses of pedagogy, economics, law, and psychiatry. The article maps the intertextual nexus of the discourse of mental health nursing education, making visible the complex, the arbitrary, and the sometimes‐contradictory nature of the discipline's grappling with identity‐based mental health concepts. We close with several implications for nursing policy, education, and practice.

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“…PPD is a common complication of pregnancy and childbirth with long- and short-term consequences for the mental experience and the functioning of all family members (Johnson et al, 2020; Patel et al, 2012). PPD can start at any time within the first year after the birth (O'Hara & Wisner, 2014), and although it usually lasts for several weeks or months and up to 1 year, for some parents PPD can last for several years (Goodman, 2004; Wang et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Actor and partner effects of prenatal coparenting behavior on postpartum depression in first-time parents

Estlein

Shai

2023

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

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Postpartum depression (PPD) is a common mental health complication of pregnancy and childbirth with long- and short-term consequences for the wellbeing and the functioning of parents. In particular, first-time parents seem to be at high risk for developing post-birth depressive symptoms as the transition to parenthood elevates stress and demands adjustment to significant changes. Prior research has mostly documented individual characteristics, such as prenatal depression and psychiatric history, as predictors of PPD, but much less is known about the potential contribution of interpersonal processes within relational contexts, such as the coparenting relationship, to PPD among first-time mothers and fathers. With evidence suggesting that coparenting dynamics start developing prior to the birth, it is imperative to consider characteristics of coparenting interaction behaviors as early as during pregnancy to identify such behaviors as risk or protective factors for PPD. In the current study, we explored one’s own (actor) and partner’s observed prenatal coparenting behaviors as predictors of mothers' and fathers' PPD. A mixed-method longitudinal study with 107 expectant couples provided both partners' self-report measures and observational data from interaction tasks prenatally, and at 3 and 6 months post-birth. APIM multilevel model analyses revealed that both negative (i.e., withdrawal and conflict) and positive (i.e., communication skills, support, and problem solving attempts) prenatal coparenting behaviors were uniquely predictive of PPD among first-time parents above and beyond other potential predictors of PPD, although several similarities and dissimilarities among fathers and mothers were detected.

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The Lived Experience of Postpartum Depression: A Review of the Literature

Cited by 9 publications

References 49 publications

Equipping fathers to support distressed mothers: What do mothers want fathers to know and do?

Equipping fathers to support distressed mothers: What do mothers want fathers to know and do?

Infrahuman madness: Mental health nursing and the discursive production of alterity

Actor and partner effects of prenatal coparenting behavior on postpartum depression in first-time parents

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