Apparently men can get PND too

I suppose it's related to ideas about masculinity - men are supposed to be "strong".

There is also the point that women generally have many more touch points with docs throughout their lives due to our reproductive systems and so are familair with the setting / get asked about our general welfare at some of them. Although then as offred points out we generally just get drugged and the underlying causes / societal causes are ignored.

As an adoptive parent I was warned several times by social workers that Post Adoption Depression is a real thing and to watch out for it and let them know if either of us needed support. Obviously that's not based on hormones or the physical changes due to pregnancy and birth, but on the massive change your life takes and reality vs your expectations of the situation.

Therefore, I can well believe than men get depression at the reality of parenthood. The quesion is do they seek help, or just plow on regardless like many women do, or do they just opt-out of family life and leave it all to the other parent and get away with it because 'you know how men are'?

Actually that description is not great!

Anyway point is that MHPs related to events are well known, and I think this covers it.

The problem here may be men asking for help rather than the name of the condition? Which is an issue across generally, both mental health and other medical issues, for men.

I also think that lack of sleep is under estimated as a contributor to MHPs (in general).

Some people seem much less able to cope with less sleep than others, with a fundamental effect on mood, and worse. Sleep deprivation in other circs is well known to have pretty major consequences.

This one obviosuly applies to all new parents (if they are waking / getting up etc) and it is one area where everyone really is expected to "get on with it" - it's seen as normal - and so people don't feel able to complain probably.

drspouse there is a term "adjustment disorder" that covers these types of things:

"Adjustment Disorder
A recent and possibly even expected event has an excessively negative effect. Adjustment disorder is marked by anxiety, reckless behavior, and difficulty in "getting over it."

Definition
Adjustment disorder is an abnormal and excessive reaction to an identifiable life stressor. The reaction is more severe than would normally be expected and can result in significant impairment in social, occupational, or academic functioning. Symptoms must arise within three months of the onset of the stressor and last no longer than six months after the stressor has ended.

The response may be linked to a single event (a flood or fire, marriage, divorce, starting school, a new job) or multiple events (marital problems or severe business difficulties). Stressors may be recurrent events (a child witnessing parents constantly fighting, chemotherapy, financial difficulties) or continuous (living in a crime-ridden neighborhood).

Adjustment disorder often occurs with one or more of the following: depressed mood, anxiety, disturbance of conduct (in which the patient violates rights of others or major age-appropriate societal norms or rules), and maladaptive reactions (i.e. problems related to work or school, physical complaints, social isolation).

Adjustment disorders are associated with high risk of suicide and suicidal behavior, substance abuse, and the prolongation of other medical disorders or interference with their treatment. Adjustment disorder that persists may progress to become a more severe mental disorder, such as major depressive disorder.

Adjustment disorder is sometimes referred to as Situational Depression."

Clearly having a new baby in the family is a huge change, as is adoption. I wonder if others past the partner could be affected - a sibling, grandparent etc.

I don't think it will serve women well to take peri natal depression and say "it happens to men too" (which it does) - as in a society where men are taken more seriosuly than women, it will simply suck resource from the already scant maternity services, and take attention off something that hasn't been recognised for that long in the first place.

I found that ante natal depression has only been recognised in the last 20 years or so - before that it was assumed that women would glow and be marvellous in pregnancy (for reasons most of us on FWR will be able to think of quite easily!) - to generalise it across a much larger group before it's even recognised as a "thing" for women, will not do women any good I think.

In terms of research as well, if the pregnancy and birth / post birth related MHPs that women suffer, are deemded as the same as men, then any mechanisms related to the pregnancy, birth, post birth are automatically discounted. As, men can't be suffering them. Saying that they are the same as a starting point, rules out from the get go the possibility that they are not. And that for some women, there may be a physiological component. So we will never be able to address it.

Women are always deemed to be at the mercy of our hormones, and irraltional, weak minded etc. It seems odd to entirely rule it out any physiological causes / contributors (does anything else happen to the brain when pg? I am no expert) on the basis that men get it too so it must be the same.

I think you are taking abstract comments and applying them very personally. That makes it hard to have a measured conversation with you, one that would have any positive outcome.

So you honestly think it's OK to tell posters on a MH thread who are telling their stories that they are using hormones as an excuse and are feeding into mental health stigma.

I mean WTF that is an AWFUL thing to say. Are you serious?

I find it inappropriate for one poster to tell other posters that they are feeding into mental health stigma when they relate stories of their own mental health problems,

I find it inappropriate for someone to think they have absolute authority of thoughts and opinions on MH because they relate personal stories of their own mental health issues.

Funnily enough - there’s quite a few of us about... but the stigma means we often keep quiet about it.

When I was suspected of having this it was "post adoption depression" - we both adopted so DH could have got this too.
You could call it something else for men I suppose?

I find it inappropriate for one poster to tell other posters that they are feeding into mental health stigma when they relate stories of their own mental health problems,

And to inform them that they don't know their own minds (ha!) and are essentially un self aware and, not sure of the word. Vain? Concerned with their self image?

Dismissing the tesimony of women about their own lives, is rife in medical practice, and in wider society as well, and is a misogynistic move.

Offred yes agree with all of that.

Women are often left to "get on with it" with pain relief, follow up etc that would not be acceptable with other similar injuries or operations. The birth thread on here was a real eye opener, so many women with issues that effected their quality of life massively and for years, dismissed, ignored.

The vaginal mesh scandal is a great example of the attitude in a lot of the medical profession when it comes to women / reproductive stuff.

The attitude of society towards women, mothers, motherhood and lack of support is going to feed in.

Someone else said it was not hormonal, not you:

"Hormones are not mentioned at all in the possible causes, and this perception is actually debunked in the myths, along with the misconception that it is an exclusively female issue."

...

OTOH to dismiss as pp did as a "myth" that hormones can play a part is strange.

That was me. I was quoting from the NHS website.i thought I had made that quite clear in my post.

Link here.

Conversely, as the conversation develops I have noticed a few things:

1. some worthwhile arguments for (and a deeper understanding of) the potential benefits of a separate diagnosis name for men
2. some shameful venom directed at men who dare to disclose suffering, when they haven’t gone through child birth.
3. that the MH stigma is alive and well: it appears that if one can blame it on hormones instead of ‘psychological or situational factors’ then it is less stigmatising.

Partners came to our antenatal classes. Partners can get pnd. I think it’s pretty accepted that its the period following the baby’s birth not the period following giving birth to the baby. It’s a mental health issue and shouldn’t be ignored.

Even ‘hormones’ is such a loaded word... I keep thinking as I type about all the myriad of ways ‘hormones’ is used to dismiss women....

I very much doubt that hormones could play much of a role in depression for men after a child has been born. There are indications hormones change, but I expect it is primarily just a rebrand of ‘struggling to come to terms with being a father’ that has been around for an age and it has been rebranded as ‘PND’ so it can be weaponised for the section of men for whom ‘struggling to come to terms with being a father’ actually means ‘struggling with a woman machine providing fewer services to me’.

Cynical...

I’m not saying there aren’t reasons to struggle with fatherhood that are not the above, more that women have been listening to ‘what about me?’ from men after a baby is born for an age.... this will be a gift to those men...

Yy to all of that.

I’m pretty confident that what is called PND now may actually be a lot of different things and lumping it all together is quite harmful because I strongly suspect the different things need different approaches.

There are a lot of judgements made in service provision too not least that ‘middle class women with husbands’ need no help or support and that ‘young, poor, single mums’ are essentially incapable of looking after babies and so must be policed by increasingly inventive methods such as hiding social workers in ‘support initiatives’ (yes family nurse partnership I am looking at you there).

What a lot of women describe when talking about postnatal care would be described as medical negligence if it happened to men IMO.

@SardineReturns - no, no, I wasn't aiming at anyone. Certainly not you.

I had a really bad dose of PND too - not that it came out of the blue - and, yes, I've been really lucky that things have moved on and that the perinatal health services knew I was At Risk and therefore I could access support. It was still bloody awful though, and I'm not out of the woods yet.

I just meant to say - and perhaps I was more strident than I needed - that perhaps it's better to have solidarity with others who suffer, rather than implying that another person's suffering isn't important.

That was a general "your" at the end, not aimed at anyone.

The more I think about it the more odd it is.

Generally we accept that hormones can have an effect on mood, a significant effect.

Teenage / pubescent mood swings
Pms
Menopause
Young men and testosterone have a few effects

But the hormonal changes during pg and after childbirth are immaterial. Except for pp and " baby blues".

It doesn't follow, surely.

Unless your point is, to say that it's the same for the partner.

Someone else said it was not hormonal, not you:

"Hormones are not mentioned at all in the possible causes, and this perception is actually debunked in the myths, along with the misconception that it is an exclusively female issue."

I agree that often mhps and drugs are a quick cheap answer, rather than looking at cause. And that with women we are often assumed to be unstable anyway, with a raft of physical conditions being left untreated in favour of assuming we're imagining it.

OTOH to dismiss as pp did as a "myth" that hormones can play a part is strange.

For me, the only change was I got pg, and with no previous mh issues, I lost my marbles. I was depressed, but also rather mad, like properly bonkers. Clearly something was going on, and I can't be the only one.

Plus. We are supposed to accept that "baby blues " exists, and that men can get hormonal changes that cause mood change, but women do not? So baby blues yes, pp yes, any other mhps, nope, can't be hormonal...? That feels very wonky.

Not saying it is ‘not hormonal’ or that there are definitely not any physiological elements to it.

What I am saying is that the best medicine can currently say is that it is thought to be hormonal.

There is a willingness generally in MH care to medicalise without reference to society (the medical model) and this is so even though the physiological causes/processes of MH problems/symptoms (including PND) are largely a mystery.

So to be absolutely clear I am not in anyway saying there are no physiological factors.

I am highly sceptical of pronouncements of ‘it is hormonal’ or ‘it is a chemical imbalance’ by doctors though, which may be said for a variety of reasons (not all bad - ‘instruction not to blame yourself’), but are both not able to be known with any level of certainty close to those pronouncements of fact.

When I was in a right state after induction, having had no pain relief, in an awful lot of distress, and ending up with an emergency cs, the midwife and the others who came in, all kept asking dh if he was ok.

I am concerned that if these "women only" labels are generalised out, we will lose the scant support we have at the moment.

Society is set up to help men first, in all but a few areas, pregnancy and childbirth being one. If we open the focus up to be shifted, I think a lot will be lost.

I can't see a problem with saying this can be a difficult time for men too, and giving info etc.

Was that aimed at me?

How on earth can anyone claim confidently that since men don't give birth they can't be hormonally affected by parenthood?

Fathers reasonably often love their children. Ergo, they have some sort of evolutionarily-determined mechanism causing them to be emotionally involved with children they didn't give birth to.

My boobs went up two cup sizes when my niece was born, and I didn't give birth to her, either.

I'm not (not) saying the perinatal experience is the same for men as for women. I AM saying that there's no reason why a man shouldn't have an episode of depression triggered by becoming a father.

Anyway, if you belittle another person's suffering, you may or may not be a feminist, but you're definitely an arse. Sorry.

Sardine sounds like you had a tough time. I think it is hard for people who have never been totally overwhelmed by a change in their hormone levels, either with mental or physical symptoms, to really "get it".

I have been very fortunate in that so far (DD is 3 months old) my mental health has been great ante and post natally, however from week 5 of pregnancy until briefly after giving birth I felt like I had been poisoned, I was nauseous for the entire pregnancy (vomiting from week 8-17 and projectile in labour), whatever hormones my placenta was churning out did NOT agree with me!! I imagine you felt the psychological equivalent of my nausea and vomiting

It is really important that Post partum/ post natal depression is recognised as the specific condition that it is. Yes it is complicated by the intertwining of changes in gender roles, and trauma in birth, but if the hormones don't agree with you, then that is a purely physiological thing, and not something that men can experience, and thus the diagnosis should not be high-jacked.