Apparently men can get PND too

Sorry, rant. Personal pronouns - I'm female.

Oh shit. I'm really depressed after discussing in great detail and planning for kid (plus many, many promises) don't want it and can up shove it back up or give it away?

Darling, I don't have a 'Lady Garden', but if I did, I'm sure I wouldn't make a big deal about it and it would be more fucked than yours, anyway. Also, my teeny man nipples are very sore after trying to get 'YOUR' baby latching on. Even my mum said baby should be potty trained by now and eating her yummy shepherd's pie (that you can't make) - even though baby 2 weeks old.

I think if you want to talk semantics then Post partum Depression is exclusively female, and post natal could be assigned to anybody in the aftermouth of birth. However, I think Post partum depression and post natal depression have been used interchanagbly for too long for it to be of anyone's benefit to start diagnosing men with post natal depression, and PND/PPD should be kept for women as there is a clear hormonal component to it that is exclusive to women who have recently given birth (along with sleep deprivation, traumatic birth etc).

There are already diagnoses available that cover what men might experience, it is well known that major life events/ changes can cause depression, are we going to start labelling all depressions specifically...Post marriage breakdown depression, post redundancy depression, post dog dying depression...it seems a little unnecessary. Also there is already Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that recognises the specific effects of witnessing a traumatic event (particularly where a loved ones life my have been at risk). Why not use these terms for the men.

I am not sure that we are even in a place yet where ante natal dpression is widely known as a "thing".

Just googling, one site says it's only in the last 20 years that it has been recognised. That is nothing really, TBH. How much do we know about it when it's that amount of time? And for PND people still talk about the "baby blues" and expect women to get on with it - although attitudes are slowly changing.

To state categoorically that there is no hormonal basis, and men and women must be treated exactly the same in this regard does feel a bit like, women have had a little attention, let's put it back where it belongs now.

There is an attitude that says that pregnancy and childbirth are a "nothing" - the drawing equivalence between the person who has been pregnant and given birth and the person who is their partner feels a bit, it feels a bit dismissive.

It reminds me of the way some people say "why not just have the baby" about abortion, or scrub surrogates out of the picture. Carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth is not a "nothing", I feel it will not help women to embed this idea further.

I suffered from peri natal depression and anxiety,

I am sure men can and do get depressed when their partners are pg or have given birth,

However I agree with those who say a different name would be useful.

Peri natal depression (ante and post) is under funded, under recognised, under treated etc. The numbers of women who suffer is high, and the numbers who do not get any help is high.

To categorise similarly is going to take a large focus off pregnant women and women who have given birth TBH.

It feels like the corollory of "women do it too"! So when it's a conversation about violent crime, "women do it too" and when it's a conversation about this, "men suffer too"! Yes I'm sure they do, is it really a good idea to take the speciifc pregnancy and birth related mental health issues that really have only for a short amount of time been recognsied at all, and generalise them out?

I am also ??? at the idea that hormones have nothing to do with any of this. Seriously? My docs said that it was hormonal, I had no previous MHPs and was pregnant so not much to adjust to (at least at the beginning) and I went a bit mad, worsening to very mad with the second one, again worsening / coming on when I was pregnant.

So, not hormonal? That's a fact is it, you can tell that to me for sure, can you? Imply that there must have been something else going on that I'm too lacking in self awareness to understand, or something? OK well awesome.

I do not think this is all there is to PND, just that a medical narrative is absolutely not all there is to it.

I have met many women who had PND. Many but not all seemed to have shitty partners.

This happens a lot with women and MH, being diagnosed with MH when the problem is shitty lives, shitty material reality, shitty men...

Also in some ways I think PND is already used to medicalise (and therefore make women the problem with) sexism.

Of course men can get PND, not only for all the reasons to do with lack of dsleep, extra stress, the huge shock of becoming a parent, but also for many, the trauma of witnessing a traumatic north where they felt completely helpless and unable to do anything other than stand back and watch their partner and child go through what is, for some, a terrifying, sometimes life threatening experience.
As a pp said, men suffering from PND does not in any way undermine women's suffering.

In the current landscape ‘men get PND too!’ will absolutely become another tool of oppression. It already is. It is already used as a way to get women who have just given birth to prioritise men’s feelings and problems.

As a statement of a type of fact it may be more or less unproblematic. Trouble is it is never just facts.

But the problem you then run into BlackBetha is you start taking the PND label away from women like me, whose post natal depression was caused by reasons that could equally affect a man, i.e. reasons that had nothing to do with actually giving birth, breastfeeding or hormones.

This isn't (or shouldn't be) about men vs women. It's about the person who gave birth vs the one who didn't. The same would apply if the woman who gave birth had a female partner - of course the partner can get depression following the birth, regardless of their sex, and of course that should be recognised and taken seriously.

But it's nonsensical to pretend there's no difference between giving birth and having a partner who gave birth. Whether or not hormones have a role, there's still birth injuries, possibly causing ongoing pain and dysfunction; there's changes to body shape and appearance that affect self-esteem; there's breastfeeding (or not being able to); the different expectations. It's just not the same.

I know some will say it doesn't matter, because depression is depression regardless of the cause, and anyone can experience pain and body changes for a variety of reasons, etc. And yes, but lumping it all in together as "PND" seems like an attempt to erase the biological reality of pregnancy and childbirth. It's recreating women's invisible labour (literally, in this case), under a veneer of progressive equality.

It’s unhelpful because using the same term potentially negates womens health issues and services, which are already often woeful.

No one is saying men cannot get depression due to fatherhood. But they don’t carry a foetus or give birth, so it’s depression, not PND.

The suicide thing....

I think we should be very careful about making too many assumptions (often based on gendered stereotypes) about why men attempt less often but succeed more often....

Actually my DH depression was kicked off after having DD, 7 years on he still suffers with depression. Saying he can't get ill just because he didn't carry the baby is complete rubbish. We live with this condition everyday, I can assure you it's real!

*they will be differently affected I mean....

E.g. I’m very confident they won’t be doing the main care or the shitwork

I am absolutely sure that the medical model re mental illness is a terrible way to approach treatment of PND.

I’m reasonably confident that ‘postnatal depression’ is a mix of; an existential crisis related to how gendered role expectations are intensified by having a child, the intensity and isolation of how we do parenting, partly a reaction to gendered stereotypes, partly a reaction to the experience of birth/pregnancy.

I believe fathers could in theory be affected by all of those things apart from birth/pregnancy but they will be different.

I suspect being depressed after having a child is probably a thing but I cynically suspect this ‘men get PND’ thing is going to be about abandoning women like when my husband ran away to work and justified it by saying ‘I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown!’ Despite doing less of the shit and having an easy out.

using the term PND is unhelpful

Why is it unhelpful though? If the causes are the same, the symptoms are the same and the treatments are the same, why would we convolute the issue by giving the same condition a male as well as a female name?

I actually think breast cancer in men is an interesting comparison as although equally devastating it is a different experience for a woman (just my opinion) I lost both breasts at 26 and my ovaries at 46. It's far more aggressive for young women as it likes to ride on oestrogen and spread through the body.
My fertility, femininity and early menopause have been life changing and now my daughters are going to have to be tested but my sons have never been.
My daughters cannot take most contraception and may one day face awful choices as I had to.
I've met men who have had surgery for bc and asthetically they don't look anywhere near as bad as I do

Agree that although it’s fine to highlight mental health risks for men - or people adopting - on becoming parents, using the term PND is unhelpful, especially when postnatal services for women are often inadequate.

Hi OP. What are your thoughts now?

No thebewilderness, it is well acknowledged that men leave breast cancer unchecked for too long because they find it embarrassing and humiliating.

I think this thread serves the same purpose to male PND sufferers and is also despicable.

I think it is a worthwhile comment, especially if it provokes such a strong reaction.

Physical health and mental health are both very real.

Are we allowed to sympathise and support men with breast cancer, or is this also appropriation and misogyny?*
That is a despicable thing to say in response to my facetious comment.

I really struggle with these types of threads because I worry that they give fuel to those who want to label feminists as ‘man-haters’.

I see misogyny, often. I’m aware of the patriarchy at play, often. But I don’t think this is either. I think it is hard enough for men to seek help for mh without being accused of misogyny as well.

Are we allowed to sympathise and support men with breast cancer, or is this also appropriation and misogyny?*

Feminism is meant to make society better for everyone. Let’s not make this thread about belittling men who already struggle to get help for mh. Because in that sense, they too are victims of the patriarchy and toxic masculinity. Big boys don’t cry.

*I’m being facetious.