Do men get post natal depression?

[MrUmble]

I heard yesterday that there is small, but ever increasing number of new fathers that suffer from post natal depression.

This was the first Id heard of this, anyone know or have any experience with this kind of thing?

[SheherazadetheGoat]

i think they may get depressed due to life change, lack of sleep etc. but calling ti post natal is ridiculous. it is up there with teh limp rags who talk about the male menapause.

[MrUmble]

I was thinking that, I can understand why women get post natal depression due to hormone changes, big shifts in life etc, but I didn't quite understand what the physiological basis would be for men to suffer it.... unless the two are related?

[secretstars]

Yeah ive heard of men getting it, i am suffering with postnatal depression and anxiety at the moment and it isnt very nice, i keep having obssesive thoughts that im going to die, but i upped my citalopram last night to 20mg only been taking it for a couple of weeks so fingers crossed i should be feeling better soon

xx

[TinkerbellesMum]

Depression can be chemical or circumstantial, I don't see that PNI is any different. I think there's no reason why men can't suffer from circumstantial depression following the birth of their child, even if they don't have the same hormones flowing.

I don't think there is enough understanding for male depression, whenever it happens, and I think that it is still seen as unacceptable for men to get depressed.

[expatinscotland]

my understanding from my psychiatric consultant was that my PND is hormonal/chemical; specific to hormone levels in the body after pregnancy/childbirth.

so it's been said that men get PND, but i don't see how if the disease is specific to hormones in the body after pregnancy/childbirth, since the male body obviously doesn't go through that.

[bran]

I imagine that it's quite similar to culture shock, there's no hormonal element to it obviously but the whole change of lifestyle, lack of sleep and not really knowing what you should be doing is exhausting and could easily lead to anxiety and depression.

When we adopted ds it felt very similar to being in a new country to me (we moved around a fair bit). There were things I didn't understand about what ds wanted/needed, I couldn't do anything on auto-pilot (I even had to count very carefully when making up formula), I kept forgetting things or not doing things in the right order and I was tired. I actually expected it to be worse than it was, and I got into the swing of things before too long, but if I had expected it to be non-stop bliss then I could see how the difference between expectations and reality could have tipped over into depression.

[TotalChaos]

I agree with others - that men can get depressed after the birth of a baby, as it is a big life change. DH was mildly depressed after DS was born.