Apr
3
Postpartum Depression – When Babies Fail to Thrive
Many people view postpartum depression as an illness affecting just the new mother. Unfortunately, this is not true. The entire family experiences relationship issues that alter family dynamics considerably. Depressed moms who do not seek help often place their infants in danger of experiencing serious or deadly delays in growth and development.
The psychiatric name for this complicated condition is nonorganic failure to thrive. Nonorganic indicates that no physical cause for the baby’s delays exists. As a result of the mother’s postpartum depression, she often stops meeting the infant’s nutritional and emotional requirements. Although the infant may cry out in hunger at the beginning, he or she usually loses interest and stops interacting with other people. This condition may result in malnutrition, starvation, and even death.
Physicians use growth charts to follow a baby’s physical growth with respect to height, weight, and head size. If an infant is healthy from birth, his or her size will be within the normal range on the growth charts. If the infant starts to experience serious growth delays, the problem will be apparent by tracking his or her progress against normal growth charts. If the baby’s progress is lower than the fifth percentile, doctors become worried.
Other signs often appear before the baby’s growth problems reach this critical point. Most infants who grow at a normal rate are interested in their surroundings. In contrast, infants who fail to thrive show little or no interest in their surroundings. These babies typically do not make sounds or words; they have stopped attempting to respond to their caretakers.
How serious is this condition? If untreated, the baby may starve to death. Although the infant may get just enough nutrition to stay alive, his or her muscles, bone, and brain cannot develop properly. Additionally, even if they are treated, these children do not “catch up” entirely. They often acquire relationship problems or eating conditions, even when they finally start getting their needs met.
Babies who failure to thrive typically become critically ill from starvation. They usually are in the hospital for several weeks at a time. Sometimes, they get so weak that taking a bottle is too tiring. They receive nutrition via a tube placed in the stomach, or even in their veins to receive food!
The saddest aspect of this condition is that it is so preventable. If moms who have postpartum depression identify their problem when it begins, they are able to seek help and do not expose their fragile babies to these horrific dangers. In fact, studies have shown that nine-tenths of the women suffering from depression and get help will find healing!
A number of approaches are useful in treating postpartum depression. Many doctors use medications like antidepressants. These drugs are expensive. They should also be avoided in nursing mothers. Moreover, these drugs sometimes cause suicidal thoughts; these medications should be used with extreme caution.
Usually, doctors encourage counseling instead of or along with medications. Counseling, however, can be expensive. Additionally, it often requires a lot of extra time, and many weeks may go by before this therapy is successful. Unfortunately, if the woman’s depression is severe, this much time may be too much to prevent harm to the infant. If the baby begins to experience delayed growth, extra therapies may be needed.
Fortunately, other non-drug treatment approaches can be used. Two revolutionary, effective approaches that typically yield positive outcomes much faster than counseling, and are not nearly as dangerous as medicine, are Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and hypnosis for depression. NLP and hypnosis typically start to help after even a single treatment. In addition, they cost much less than other approaches.
Mothers who think they might have postpartum depression must get help immediately so that their infants do not develop dangerous growth problems. The seriousness of the consequences for the infant demands that the treatment work quickly, and have a high rate of effectiveness. NLP and hypnotherapy for depression are inexpensive, begin to work almost immediately, and are extremely effective. This makes these two treatments perfect for helping women with postpartum depression.
Summary: Postpartum depression is depression that begins after childbirth. New moms cannot provide their babies the caring they need to live and grow. This causes failure to thrive, a serious, possibly fatal condition, affecting the infant. Women who suspect that they have postpartum depression need to get help immediately. Hypnotherapy and NLP for depression are inexpensive and are extremely effective.
Alan B. Densky, CH specializes in depression and stress related symptoms as a certified hypnotherapist and NLP Practitioner. During his 31-year career he has helped thousands of clients. He supplies CDs for hypnosis anxiety depression. Visit his Neuro-VISION hypnosis website for the hypnosis article repository, or watch his free videos on hypnosis.
- Alan Densky