Progesterone Therapy for PND Dalton

[Zod]

I had really bad PND after the birth of my daughter in 2005. Got almost better after 15 months and was able to avoid Ads. Am now pregnant again (not planned) and do not want to put family through my pnd again. I have heard of progesterone therapy pioneered by Katharina Dalton. Asked my doctor about it and she said that it was probably only available in the States. She said it may be available in the UK from certain doctors and she would look into it. Has anyone had this treatment here or heard of it before?

[mummytosteven]

I've heard of it, have a feeling that it's not been shown to be effective. might be worth you taking fish oils regularly if you want something preventative?

[bighair21]

Know this post is a bit old but I'll try anyway. I had severe PND when first daughter was born (14 years ago). I got pregant again with second partner 4 years ago and was terrified of getting PND again. I had read some stuff about progesterone injections and asked my GP if I could do this. They did let me do this and when dd was born I started on the injections.

However, I'm sad to say that I did still get PND but not as badly as before. In fact, I think the key is getting it dealt with as soon as you start to feel bad. Mine never came as severe as first time round.

My HV also suggested I start taking ADs 4 weeks before baby due but I didn't. Looking back I would probably do that now. How are you getting on?

[bagsundereyes]

I did some research into this last year (I work in mental health). The Dalton study has not really been followed up by anyone else, and so hormonal treatments are not widely available at the moment, though there are some studies into oestrogen therapy currently.

Big hair is right - early intervention is really important. It might be worth requesting a referral to your local perinatal psychiatrist, as GPs and general adult psychiatrists do not always have the specialist knowledge for safe prescribing in pregnancy and while breastfeeding.

[clutteredup]

Hi Zod,just picked up on your thread. I had PND after DS, I too was worried about recurrence for DD1 and did some similar research. I had a very supportive HV and doctor and they were quite happy for me to be prescribed progesterone treatment. I had it as a suppository, straight after DD1 was born. My experience was much better, retrospectively i think i still suffered mldly from PND, but not nearly to the same extent as with DS, but i don't know whether that was just because it was better second time round. That is the hard thing to prove i guess, i also had a lot more support second time round. After DD2 I took nothing and have had a much better experience altogether, although once again i had even more support. So i don't know for sure the progesterone treatment did help, but it certainly didn't make it worse, and maybe it was better just knowing I was doing something which might help. Although my doctor was fine with it, I did get some stick from themidwives in the hospital, and it was clear they thoguht I was 'strange'but it did help me. You should be able to get it but you might need to find a doctor to suport you. Anyway hope this helped, best of luck