Apparently men can get PND too

Pandas are brilliant, I used to volunteer for them 👍

My dh suffered with post-BeyondBirthedAChild depression too. They didn't actually call it PND, but said it was specifically related to new parenthood.

Thanks for sharing, that looks like a really good charity.

This is Pandas. I think any discussion of pnd should link to this charity:

www.pandasfoundation.org.uk

It does distinguish between post natal depression, anxiety, psychosis, OCD.

The site has changed somewhat and I'm not finding it very accessible, but I'm sure there used to be a short part on fathers too unless I'm thinking of Mind.

I think it's a different issue but I feel it needs to be linked to raise awareness of how some fathers struggle and find their mh affected (esp if no prior issues, as with my Dh) purely so that access and support avenues are more accessible. And men perhaps are more self aware - which is an issue in itself as men's mh is often more stigmatised by themselves.

sardine I believe there has been a big push on recognising and treating pnd among gps, mws and hvs. Also psychosis. There's also now the Pandas charity for ANd and PND. It's very mother centred as well it should be. I think issues with the father tend to be more regarding any hint of abuse which can be triggered by birth. So all about safe guarding. As it should be. A new baby simply doesn't seem to be a recognised trigger for any type of mh issues in a father.

Thing is - there are ssri drugs that seem to be very safe in pregnancy.

I have had two friends suffer with pn psychosis- I suffered from severe, acute pnd and ocd. It bordered on worse at times. It was a very specific feeling and it was undoubtedly physical in origin. When ds didn’t sleep for 18m I was a mess too but it was a very different struggle.

The female unique nature of ante and post natal depression, psychosis, anxiety and ocd HAS to be kept separate because it is a separate, female physiology specific etiology

I am all for depression being recognised and treated better in men - it needs a different label and approach though. It is effectively an adjustment disorder and women can suffer that bit as well. It’s not the same as pnd/pnp/ocd/anxiety

I gave up on feminism in the 1980s having been told by a female psychiatrist who claimed to be a feminist that my postnatal psychosis was not hormone related, and had nothing to do with the horrendous PMS I suffered monthly. Many years of ineffective treatment later, including ECT for the depression induced by the antipsychotics, lithium that knocked out my thyroid and left me in a mental fog and periods of suicidal despair, I was prescribed oestrogen patches by a Dutch locum GP and almost immediately regained my sanity.
I'm deeply saddened that so many still seem not to realise the enormous impact hormones and hormonal changes have on women's mental health.

"A few friends of mine was diagnosed with PND but she were also depressed before pregnancy, and the only reason why we think it got worse after is because a lot of midwives discourage the taking of antedepressants during pregnancy. I don’t think that should be their call; midwives should not be allowed to give MH advice as it should be down to GPs / Specialists."

Yes 9-10 months of untreated MHPs with pregnancy on top is a killer.

Probably if you catch it earlier the outcomes are better / quicker? Certainly mine went on for years before I finally was able to get some help (ADs) and it's never really left me.

I say that physically havign children was OK but sadly it broke my mental health completely.

I mean my MHPs related to pregnancy which bled through into teh afetrmath.

Ante natal depression is still not really on a lot of people's radar, I think.

Ekphrasis - I am sorry to hear about your experiences - it sounds extremely difficult to put it mildly.

One of the interesting things in your post for me was about different levels of support received dependigng on where you are. And my babies were a while ago so hopefully things have changed:

• Midwives - I did not have one to see, I saw someone different at my appts so no relationship or chance for her to see something wasn't right from getting to know me / me relaxing etc
• HVs - no contact at all really, there was a baby weighing thing at the centre but you had to get there, and that was about baby weighing not about anything else
• 6 week check doc made it clear that it was for the baby

I had undiagnosed MHPs for a long time, and the other issue is that once the baby is there, and if you ave anxiety, this can act as a prevention in getting help (worry about having baby removed). Do men have the same worry? Generally I think that women are judged quite hard on how they parent, men are congratulated for doing the bare minimum. Would fear of interacting with support be quite as common? I'm not sure. Maybe it would.

A few friends of mine was diagnosed with PND but she were also depressed before pregnancy, and the only reason why we think it got worse after is because a lot of midwives discourage the taking of antedepressants during pregnancy. I don’t think that should be their call; midwives should not be allowed to give MH advice as it should be down to GPs / Specialists.

Sorry, to be clear - the reason I would struggle to call it parental depression is because it might imply it was my daughter who triggered it, not the act of becoming a parent, iyswim.

Parental depression is a really interesting suggestion. I think it is a great descriptor, but do you think that even if suffering from that you might resist the diagnosis because of the name?
I would struggle to blame my depression on parenthood, even though a lot of my MH issues came to light either as a result of becoming a parent or because shit got real and I realised if I didn’t take better care of my MH I’d end up ruining my daughter’s life too.
I also cleaned up my shitshow of a financial situation, motivated by her birth.

Perhaps there should be new definitions: hormone related post partum depression, and parental depression?

Funnily enough, I was having a discussion about this on Facebook yesterday, with women who are suffering from depression who have older children - me included, I jokingly called it toddler induced depression. Some of them classed it as PND, but that doesn't seem quite right, especially since some of them had older children than mine.

PND is often classed as coming on when your baby's quite a lot older- surely, especially if you're not breastfeeding, your hormones would have stabilised by then, and it's just the hideous grind of parenting (plus, for many women, getting the shitty end of the structural inequality stick) that's dragging you down?

I have suffered from ante natal depression, and from post natal anxiety (immediately after the birth), which felt very different from the depression caused by the struggle of life as a single parent, with the added sensory shock of someone screaming very loudly in my ear on a regular basis, which I'm feeling right now.

I think DH suffered from PND after DS1 was born and possibly after DS2 was born as well. He struggled and I wish he'd had more help with it at the time.

PND is a widely accepted diagnosis now, and if this diagnosis helps the person (regardless of gender) to get help, and for others to understand what they're going through, I think it's a really good thing!

I think this is picking a fight for fights sake to be honest.

I agree bowl.

there's criticism of the new film Tully as what she actually has is postnatal psychosis but it's labelled pnd. So I agree there needs to be defining characteristics of the differences as treatment and support needs to be tailored differently.

Chocolate, I think in the hcp's vernacular, it needs to be identified as a type of depression that can be triggered by becoming a parent. Highlighted as a potential issue that can happen. With the aim of then supporting the mother too.

Give it a different name but it needs to be on the radar for mws and hvs. I haven't once been asked about how Dh feels about new baby or how I feel he is going to cope.

And I'm very involved in a pnd charity so I do know full well how awful pnd is.

There just needs to be a separation of causes and naming.

Men can of course get depressed. Having a newborn is a shock. Having one that doesn’t sleep for years is enough to make almost anyone suffer severe effects.

Women have all that PLUS the hormonal and physical effects of pregnancy, lactation and birth plus the the hormonal changes afterwards.

So both can get depression but the causes differ. The physical vs psychological contribution is different. And so the course of illness and the treatment may differ. The male version may need more psychological intervention while the female needs to accountfor physical and hormonal causes too.

Some sort of term like new parent depression or parental adjustment depression would be useful. Labelling men with PND is not useful in diagnosis or treatment.

confuddled.

And, just thinking about it, I believe I know of two other fathers whose mh issues deteriorated severely after the birth of their children. In a mother it would be named as linked to pnd or at least questioned. One friend often says she pin points 'it' to when her second child was born, who had cleft lip and palette.

They can be depressed and being a new parent can contribute to the cause of that, but I don't believe they can have post natal depression itself.
Men are not normally affected by the birth of the child because they do not carry the child and give birth to it. I think calling it postnatal depression for men trivializes it for women for whom it is a very real illness.

Sorry for multiple posts, one more thing - one of the biggest things I had to fight in my dhs perception was that only women get pnd or anxiety. In a way, if it was more commonly recognised as an issue for some fathers, I could have identified it to him. It was only when I read about pnd or rather pna symptoms and flipped it round to him that I realised what was going on. It was a type of projected health anxiety for him.

Anxiety has a horrid way of fooling the person who had it into thinking their concerns are extremely valid. He often thought he was being rational thinking the way he did. Of course, 'men don't get mh issues... ' (in his head).

My dh has suffered terrible with depression after the birth of our dd. After birth -postnatal, and depression so he has postnatal depression.
I take offence that the hell we have been through this past year with it and suicide attempts you are belittling to try and get one up on men in the name of feminism.

I've told him however, that I will be naming it and asking him to go to the gp this time round.

My biggest issue with being dismissive about the fact that men might get a type of pnd (I agree it needs a different name but it's now a common term in society's conscience and so indicates what it might be to the general population ) is that if the partner has it, it impacts directly on the mother and child also. Just as severe pnd in a woman may impact her partner and children.

I don't care what it's called; it needs to be a recognised thing. I have had anxiety about my very nearly here second child's arrival purely based on how Dh reacted to certain issues driven by bizarre anxieties.

Dh did experience obsessive thoughts, anxiety and a level of depression due to issues with the birth of our son, ds's surprise iugr and his own anxieties about his son's future (worried excessively about his height etc) it was out of control and difficult for me to deal with; completely unrecognised by the hcps around us - they though I was being anxious when I yet again went to the gp asking qs on behalf of my DH. (I later stopped asking qs and would say, my husband is worried... I think it's fine.)

Dh thought he was being completely rational, as I was coping with motherhood I didn't tune into it till it was quite out of hand.

I think if my HV had asked my husband directly about any worries he had it would have been helpful or asked me if my husband was worried in any way.

Whatever that was it does need to be named. He constantly queried things and worried about things I hadn't thought of which put doubts into my head as I tried to work out answers or back up why my gut feeling was that this wasn't anything to worry about.

I found the hvs were overly focussed on my own mh - when I was once in tears about my Dh over-reacting to things (it was exhausting to try to talk him down and round and alleviate his concerns), they interpreted it as me needing to take antidepressants. This was not what I needed. Also, family kept reassuring me about things and not talking to him. I felt I carried his "over anxious parent" label as I was the one who saw all the hcps face to face.

I've since worked out my husband has certain triggers of anxiety relating to not having much of a clue about biology, a little OCD regarding bacteria etc (its rather erroneous though) and had severe PFB, especially around food. But that actually down plays how hard it was to live with him and reassure him.

If not PND, it was a type of parental anxiety. It only pops up now through him getting anxious about the range of foods our son may or may not eat; nutrition etc.

The big issue is that anxiety in some people, especially men, often comes out as anger which then creates its own issues. Hence why I think this really needs to be recognised and taken seriously.

That's a good point Sardine. I had an ex bf come with me to doctors to discuss contraceptive choices and he was horrified at a very matter of fact conversation about periods and sex.

He came away shocked at the 'intrusive' questions they asked me, that were utterly routine and to help them identify the best solution. He just kept saying 'I can't believe they asked you that, it was so personal'. From my point of view, it was a completely normal appointment. Women are used to those kinds of questions.