Katherine, Thank you VERY much for your mother's input. IMO, very
insightful and thought-provoking. I agree that she's "on to something" :-)
Would you please ask her opinion (and I would love to hear the Lactnet
comments) about another possible contributor to postpartum depression,
psychologically-based, related to changing lifestyle. I feel that it is
possible that a mother encounter depression because she is suppressing
resentment toward her infant for changing her life. Understand, please,
that I am thinking about a woman with no psychological clutter in her
psyche - no sexual abuse, no gender envy - just an everyday sort of
person who really, really *wanted* and dreamed about this baby, but was
sort of shocked by the huge difference in her life. Add to this the
grinding fatigue, possibly a dash of sore nipples, even a soupcon of
colic, etc. Now, she wants the baby, is bfing, nurturing it very well,
doing all the right things, but, maybe in some individuals instead of
what Dr. West calls grief, there is instead well-suppressed resentment
which is not allowed to surface because it is very unacceptable socially.
I am a bit of a nut on this point because of my personal experience with
my firstborn. I was thrilled with my gorgeous daughter, but had the usual
problems with unsupported bfing (husband was fine with it, but my mom -
who didn't bf me - was sure that her first grandchild was starving
because she wanted to nurse every 2 hours - sound familiar everyone?).
Plus I was a person who loved to sleep. 10 hours a day. When the baby was
about 2 months old (mom stayed with me for the first 6 weeks to help -
big clue), I started having a recurrent dream, dreaming it every night,
sometimes several times a night. I would wake up sweating, sometimes
moaning, sometimes with tears on my cheeks. The dream went like this: The
snow was up to at least my knees, and I was on my way to a football game
with the baby in my arms. Right away, you should know that this is real-time
nonsense, since I hate football (sorry to any fans out there!), and was
at one game in my life (a date). I decided that I didn't want to take the
baby to the game, so I laid her in the snow under a bush and went on to
the game. In the dream, there is a blank for the game, but right away, it
is after the game, and I'm looking under all the bushes for my baby, but
I can't find her. This is when I always woke up either crying or moaning.
This went on for several weeks until I thought I was losing my mind, and
then one day I examined the dream while awake to see if I could figure
out what my unconscious or subconscious was trying to tell me. As soon as
I could tell myself: "Judy, this baby is keeping you from your sleep,
this baby has changed your life and it will never be the same, but,
jeepers, isn't she wonderful?" - you know, I never had the dream again.
And I never had PPD, but that may be neither here nor there......
I am awaiting your reactions. Judy Knopf, this time obsessing on dreams