Antenatal distress is an area desperately needing answers. In the meantime, sufferers have to deal with the uncertainty.
Pregnancy is often recognized as a time of vivacity – a time to bloom, glow and be joyous. Unfortunately, it can be a time of great vulnerability, as many mothers-to-be have discovered. The culprit, antenatal depression, appears to have gained some recognition in recent years. However, I’d say the journey has really just begun. I think I’m going to get a t-shirt that says, “More Research, Please” because it would definitely be well-worn.
I had so many questions when I set out to research this topic. Is depression linked to poor neonatal outcome? If so, is this link causal or correlative? Can antidepressants be used in pregnancy? If not, why not? And that was just for starters. Unfortunately the picture is far from clear, and I found myself confused and frustrated at the vast number of conflicting studies. This then led me to ask: what on earth are sufferers supposed to do? This must be awful for them and their carers.
Another issue that came up during my research was the question of how we define depression, when mood swings in pregnancy are considered “normal”. I think this is an individual issue – if you experience symptoms that are negatively impacting on your life, then it’s worth taking a closer look. With this is mind, I feel “antenatal distress” is a better term as it encompasses all of those suffering distress during pregnancy, not just those with a diagnosis. But anyway, the terms (or labels?) we use are a blog post for another day.
