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This week research found paternal postnatal depression, or PPD among dads, is more common than first believed. Lauren Hale listed some of the tweets that disturbed her on her blog My Postpartum Voice:
“Post Partum Depression for dad’s? Really? Already a name for that. Called “Life got tougher. Deal.” Judges also would accept, “Parenthood.”
“CNN: “Dads get post-partum depression too.” Oh, come on. It’s called sleep- and sex-deprivation.”
“I’m sorry. I just cant see a man suffering from postpartum depression. No one is cutting his man hole sewing it up to bring out a baby”
“A man suffering from postpartum depression is a girly man.”
“Lol @ “postpartum depression can strike new dads”. Yeah, no. Until they have to have an episiotomy…no”
I have to admit I was skeptical myself when I first learned of PPD in men a couple of years ago.
Men can't have postpartum depression! They don't have the babies! They don't have baseball-sized hemorrhoids! They aren't leaking from head-of-lettuce-sized sore breasts! They aren't wearing shoebox-sized maxi-pads! They aren't tortured with hormones flying up and down like a roller coaster!
I've learned a lot since then. This is real. It's been reported widely over the last few years, and there are plenty of men who've been through it to back up the fact that men can and do experience postpartum depression.
Blogger Lauren knows from personal experience:
"Even though I begged my husband to tell me he was struggling too after the birth of our second daughter, he repeatedly told me he was fine. All I wanted to hear was that I wasn’t alone. Instead he kept it inside as he began to abuse marijuana on top of the antidepressants he had been prescribed. In fact, I just discovered last night that he didn’t even want to hold her while she was in the NICU. Our daughter is now four years old."
I think the disbelief of many of the Tweeps who are making light of this news may come from the misconception that postpartum depression is caused solely by a hormonal problem related to the act of giving birth. While hormones can play a part, there are a lot of risk factors external to the body that can lead to PPD that men are as likely to have as women. They also can experience sleep deprivation. They also can worry when their children are born with health problems or when their wives have traumatic births. They also can have dreams about what having a baby will be like, and then must face a reality that doesn't live up to those fantasies. They also may have suffered from childhood trauma or abuse. Why wouldn't they be susceptible?
Blogger Joel Schwartzberg, who wrote about his own experience with this illness in a Newsweek essay, shared his relief yesterday that paternal postnatal depression may now become less stigmatized:
I hope this can be a starting point for discussion of the unique pressures sudden fathers feel. At the end of the day -- and days are never longer than when you're a new parent -- "manning up" should include expressing feelings of vulnerability, depression, and personal need, not just burying them. In my experience, that's the only hope of truly overcoming.
I agree Joel. And I'm sorry that at first I did not believe. I do now.
Katherine Stone Postpartum Progress http://www.postpartumprogress.com
