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Postpartum Depression in Canada

More Than the Baby Blues

By Neilia Sherman

After the birth of my first child eight years ago, I was seized by terrifying feelings of panic at the thought of being alone with him. When my husband dragged me out on a grocery expedition two weeks after he was born, I experienced heart palpitations and dizziness. It would be many months before I would be able to leave the house alone with him. I felt completely incapable of taking charge of this new life. Eventually, I found out that I was experiencing symptoms of postpartum depression.

Postpartum depression occurs in as many as one in five women, according to Ann Douglas, author of The Mother of All Baby Books and The Mother of All Pregnancy Books from Peterborough, Ontario. "It generally appears at some point during the first six to eight weeks after delivery, but it can show up at any time during the year after birth," she says.

A study published in the BioMed Central Family Practice Journal looked at a sample of 875 women who gave birth in five Ontario hospitals. Up to 15 percent of the otherwise healthy women who participated in this research had high scores on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression survey – an indicator that they were suffering from postpartum depression. The best predictors of a significantly high score on this survey were: lack of social support, lack of emotional support, a household income of less than $20,000, the desire to spend more time in hospital, self-identified care needs for a mental health problem and the mother's rating of her own and the baby's health as poor.

This study shows that there is a need to screen Canadian women for depression early in the postnatal period, as none of these women had been previously identified. In 1998, a hospital stay of less than 48 hours following an uncomplicated delivery had become normal practice in Ontario, which "reduced access to in-hospital identification and treatment of postpartum complications," according to the study. Now, Ontario policymakers have offered women the option of a 60-hour stay at the discretion of the mother.

Want to see more?

• Postpartum Depression: Preventing Tragedy
• Postpartum Depression: When Having a Baby Gives You More Than the Blues
• The First Year: Birth to 3 Months
• Join the discussion on our Family.com community!