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Feeling Blue?
Depression During Pregnancy
By Heather Johnson Durocher
Like most expectant moms who experience highs and lows throughout their pregnancy, Rachel* chalked up her bad moods while carrying her second child to her physical state and looming life changes. Already the mother of a 6-month-old, she found herself feeling increasingly overwhelmed and unhappy about becoming a mother again. Still, Rachel didn't believe her negative outlook would last long. "I never considered that I was depressed, just feeling pregnant," she says. "I contributed it to hormones."
But Rachel's sadness didn't ease as she had hoped. Instead, it grew more serious and family members began urging her to seek help. Like many women, Rachel was experiencing depression during pregnancy.
While depression following the birth of a baby often makes headlines, depression during pregnancy isn't as well known. But according to a 2001 study of more than 9,000 mothers during and after pregnancy, symptoms of depression were more common during pregnancy than after. Some evidence suggests that mood during pregnancy may affect the unborn child, according to the study published in the British Medical Journal. As a result, the studies' authors called for more detection and treatment of depression during pregnancy.
Parenting and pregnancy expert Ann Douglas says dealing with life changes and a lot of physical discomforts at the same time contribute to depression during pregnancy.
"It's just not the picnic you thought it would be," explains Douglas, a mother of four who is the author of 15 books including The Mother of All Pregnancy Books (January 2002) and The Mother of All Parenting Books (June 2002).
Feeling guilty about any negative thoughts during pregnancy doesn't help the situation, Douglas added. "Everybody always expects you to be totally euphoric throughout your total nine months of pregnancy," she says.
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