Long-Term Impact of Postpartum Depression.

Posted: November 28th, 2022

Long-Term Impact of Postpartum Depression.

Reflect on a patient who presented with postpartum depression during your Practicum Experience. Describe the patient’s personal and medical history, drug therapy and treatments, and follow-up care. Then, explain the implications of the patient’s postpartum depression, including how this might impact the entire family unit. If you did not have an opportunity to evaluate a patient with this background during the last nine weeks, you may select a related case study from a reputable source or reflect on previous clinical experiences.Long-Term Impact of Postpartum Depression.

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During the Practicum Experience, the young woman encountered with a diagnosis of postpartum depression was a 28 year-old Caucasian lady who had just given birth to her first child four three weeks earlier. She presented with a complaint of lack of bonding with her newborn child and feelings of apathy towards any social activity. She felt sad most of the time and wanted to keep away from not only her child, but also all other family members and neighbors. This had been going on for the past two weeks. The lady had been trying to conceive without success for five years and finally succeeded. She could not understand why the joy she thought she would have after finally conceiving was now elusive. She had a medical history of having had epilepsy in her teens but which was successfully managed. She has been symptomless for the same since the age of twenty. There was no significant psychiatric history on the side of her family. However, she had been treated for briefly for depression while in college after failing some tests in her final year.Long-Term Impact of Postpartum Depression. She stopped taking medication for her epilepsy years ago and was not on any medication at the time. She was also breastfeeding her baby, although she started doing this erratically after the withdrawal symptoms set in. Postpartum depression is currently diagnosed as peripartum depression in pregnancy and up to four weeks after delivery (APA, 2013). Epidemiologically, postpartum depression affects up to 20% of all mothers (Guille et al., 2013).Long-Term Impact of Postpartum Depression.
Treatment for this condition can either be psychotherapy alone or a combination of psychotherapy and antidepressant medication (Guille et al., 2013). This however depends on the severity and frequency of the symptoms. When not severe, psychotherapy with cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT is sufficient (Corey, 2013). However, if symptoms are severe CBT is combined with drugs such as fluoxetine and escitalopram (Guille et al., 2013; Stahl, 2017). Follow up is typically after every four weeks to assess the efficacy of treatment. However, the CBT sessions are more frequent.
The impact of postpartum depression on the mother and her family are long lasting. There is a significant possibility of non-postpartum recurrence of the depression, and the child may also have developmental challenges. To the family, the burden of disease and its costs are immense, since the mother is not able to perform at work and earn a living.Long-Term Impact of Postpartum Depression.