Postpartum Depression

Rachel Jones* knew she wasn't herself when – mere weeks after the birth of her second child – balancing her checkbook became a huge burden and leaving the house with her two young sons in tow became a scary prospect.

"I was starting to get kind of paranoid about going out," says Jones, a mother of two sons, now 3 and 1. "The thought of going out with the two of them was getting overwhelming, completely overwhelming."

Jones became increasingly reclusive and that, she says, "was a signal." She says it was a signal not merely of feeling out of sorts but of being depressed.

With family living across the country, a husband who was a medical resident in neurology, a then 2-year-old "at the height of his negativism," and a new baby to care for, Jones says it's no wonder she – like so many new mothers – slipped into postpartum depression (PPD). "I think you're just kind of set up for it," says the Portland, Ore., resident.

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