User talk:Ashiannaj/sandbox

70-80% of women experience some form of depression within the first two weeks following childbirth. Women used to suffer in silence, as society deemed it “normal” for women to feel down or upset after this possibly traumatic experience. Though, many women experience severe symptoms of depression, that go beyond feeling down. Many stories have circulated about women committing suicide after childbirth or going into large, violent depressive episodes. The psychiatric community did not take postpartum depression seriously; it was not until 1994 that they officially recognized it. Different sources define it differently: an illness that can occur within 2 weeks of delivery, 4 weeks, two months, or a year. There were periods when depression following childbirth was thought to be a quality of a witch or a result of witchcraft. Women were also considered to lack maternal instinct and others had suspicion that these women would hurt their newborn children.

The 19th century was the first period where many physicians began to publicly study and treat postpartum depression. Physicians began to see just how severe and common depression following delivery was. Though, throughout the 19th century it was still widely referred to as “insanity” or as negative adjectives like melancholy, attacking the body.