Postpartum Depression (PPD) - A Serious Case of Illness

Introduction

What is postpartum depression (PPD)? Postpartum depression or also known as (in plain mama English) is a type of disease that a women can get when she gives birth to a child within the last 12 months. Around 1 out of 7 new mothers around the world will get this disease. How do you know if you have this disease? If your feelings of despair and sadness are too great to absorb or you could not even accomplish simple daily tasks then you know you have PPD.

There are some risk factors that may lead to PPD which are history of depression, previous miscarriage, prenatal depression, smoking, low levels of oxytocin etc. The symptoms are the feeling of extreme sadness or hopelessness. Keep on crying without any particular reason and have no interest in any activities. The feeling of suicide and life has no meaning or life isn’t worth living. Has loss of appetite on eating or over eating. Other signs may be worrying too much about your baby. Easily irritated or hot tempered.

Postpartum Depression (PPD) Cases

Postpartum Depression can cause a lot of damage to one family if it doesn’t cure or seek treatment. There is a lot of case that involve PPD in the world even famous artist also got this illness such as Adele. I have found three cases that involve PPD, one in Malaysia and another two in overseas.

Malaysia Case

There is a case where an army Corporal’s wife slashed their 40-days-old child to death. She claimed that she heard some whispers and voices telling her to kill her child. The minister comments on it say that this is an extreme case of Postpartum Depression that rarely happen to mother in the country. She seem to have Auditory Hallucination where a person hears a non-existing ‘voice’ talking with itself, or two ‘voices’ speaking with one another, or a ‘voice’ giving orders to the victim.

Overseas Case

A woman accused of drowning her twin babies pleaded guilty because the judge called it a case of postpartum depression. She was arrested after her mother-in-law found her in a bathroom with the twins, who were wet, fully clothed and crying. The twins, a boy and a girl, were 4 months old at the time. Both her and her husband has started to join some counselling group to heal this illness.

Overseas Case 2

A seven-month old baby was murder which happened in Podolsk Moscow region and the reason for the killing was because of postpartum depression. The baby had an injury to the brain, closed craniocerebral injury, brain contusion severe fracture of the right parietal and occipital bones, multiple subcutaneous haemorrhage, head and face. Doctors in Podolsk city hospital fought for the baby’s life but in the end the child dead.

Conclusion

If you think you have postpartum depression, you might seek help from psychotherapy and antidepressants. Don’t feel too bad if you have PPD because you are not alone and it can be treated so act now before anything unwanted happens.

References

1. http://malaysiandigest.com/news/657265-she-claimed-to-have-heard-whispers-and-voices-telling-her-to-kill-her-40-days-old-child.html

2. http://abcnews.go.com/US/Depression/story?id=92935&page=1

3. https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/34656471/lawyers-for-murder-accused-call-for-lesser-charge-blaming-postnatal-depression/#page1

(Quah Kah Sheung, Sim Chiew Ee, Low Jia Wei, Ooi Shu Qi)