4per cent of new dads have post natal depression

[longwayoff]

Says LBC quoting a Stanford University study. Expert currently pointing out that as pnd is female hormone related, its unlikely to be pnd. What does mumsnet think? Personally I have a cynical eyebrow raised.

Turning the attention over to men at precisely the time a woman needs it just like everything else in fucking life

Why does it have to be a binary choice between one or the other. Like so often on MN it becomes a game of top trumps as to 'who has it worse' rather then the reality which is that new parents are both under the cosh in different ways that can eventually manifest itself as depression.

It's nothing to do with male vs female, it's "having given birth" and "not having given birth". If you haven't given birth, you can't have PND. Simple as that. That doesn't mean the non-birthing (or adoptive) parent can't have depression which is as severe and serious as PND - of course they can - but it's not PND.

If you haven't given birth, you can't have PND. Simple as that. That doesn't mean the non-birthing (or adoptive) parent can't have depression which is as severe and serious as PND - of course they can - but it's not PND

Again I totally agree BUT the correct time to discuss the naming of the condition wouldn’t be at the point a man asked for help?

pan

Because this is how it starts. Next we will see some men lobbying to attend pre birth classes designed for women only, post yoga classes designed for women only, women’s toilets, women’s changing rooms.... infact women should now be known as cis women not women... oh wait!

@JacquesHammer Well, I wouldn't do it myself, no, but actually I would expect a medical professional to do so. Establishing the cause of your feelings is an important step on the road to recovery and explains the difference in treatment options.

Well, I wouldn't do it myself, no, but actually I would expect a medical professional to do so. Establishing the cause of your feelings is an important step on the road to recovery and explains the difference in treatment options

That’s a different thing though isn’t it? Absolutely establishing a cause to result in treatment is fine.

It was more a case of a poster suggesting if a man said he had PND, her first reaction would be “fuck off”.

I don’t think that’s helpful to anyone to be honest. Some men find it exceedingly hard to access mental health services because of simply not feeling able to express their feelings. I think if someone asks for help it’s more important to assist them to access that help rather that disagree with their language use.

@JacquesHammer Ah okay, fair enough. I definitely agree that more should be done to empower men to access mental health support and treatment.

I think any health professional would react to a man saying they PND with exploratory questioning and help - no doctor would tell them to F off.

What the poster presumably meant was the idea of men generally appropriating a female condition - and that I do agree is an issue.

What’s an appropriate response in a medical context isn’t always what is appropriate in a context of say, a man claiming that men suffer from PND in an OP ed in a paper.

betrand what needs to be done?

Educate people on mental illness is what needs to be done.

People think depression is 'hormones/brain chemistry imbalance', which is a massive step forward from 'laziness', but still an appallingly low level understanding.

Depression is a symptom...like having a sore neck. Now the 'sore neck' you personally are experiencing could be menigitis, it could be a wasp sting, it could be a cold, it could be a cancer...but we will just call it 'sore neck' and give everyone the same first line treatment (anti-histamines) and then maybe come up with something different for the people this doesn't help / and or don't get better on their own.

Its laughable that we would treat physical symptoms this way...but its apparently par for the course in the realm of mental health.

There are three primary triggers for depression post partum.

1. Hormone changes. This should sort itself out fairly quickly and could be medicated if people bothered to work out the issue before treating. Its probably more likely the cause in cases of full on psychosis. It almost certainly doesn't effect men.
2. Birth Trauma/ PTSD. People react badly to being in what they perceive to be life threatening situations, particularly when uncontrolled pain is involved. Men can get PTSD from being present in this sometimes horrific situation, but it is likely more prevalent in women. I think this is probably the biggest single cause of 'PND'.
3. Loss of role/new role you don't feel proficient in. Many people identify strongly with their work and not so strongly with being a bum wiping sick clearing up machine. Taking people out of the board room and into a totally new environment that they don;t feel in control of can be seriously destabilising. Feeling incompetent is very painful for people who self identify strongly as competent. This is a viscous cycle as spending a lot of time hating on yourself for being incompetent tends to to reduce your actual competence. Both men and women can experience this after becoming parents.

The fact that most people don't recover from their depression when the hormones have long since stabilised is the most straight forward evidence for 'hormonal imbalance' being minority player.

As I said hormones are a primary player in psychosis, but psychosis is far rarer than depression.

Men don't get post natal depression. The clue is in the name.
They may get reactive/situational depression following a life changing event such as a baby being born.

On a technicality is that not what pnd is? They just need to change the definition. One of the hardest thing after the birth of a child is the change in your situation and circumstances, the stress, the lack of sleep etc. So maybe they change the definition to include non hormone related depression, but I think it's good its recognised and actually I like that so many people on this thread can be unbiased about how men can possibly need help too!

There is also the fact that treatment based on replacing or stabilising hormones has been shown to be ineffective that might tend to indicate hormones aren't to blame.

Mind you ADs don't often come up as working better than placebo so maybe we just don't know anything about anything....

Why do so many people claim that the meaning of words and terms has to be broadened to the point of meaninglessness in order to include everything?

Post adoption depression is absolutely real and serious and important, its a form of situational depression not of post natal depression. The same applies to situational depression new father's can experience.

A sprained ankle can be more serious than a hairline fracture. Diagnosing it as a broken leg in order to ensure its taken seriously would lead to incorrect treatment. The same is often true of using the wrong word for things in an attempt to signal that they are equally important/ real/ serious. Equally important/ real / serious doesn't mean identical.

"It was more a case of a poster suggesting if a man said he had PND, her first reaction would be “fuck off”.
I said that. However- it is usually considered courteous to consider context before quoting?

A sprained ankle can be more serious than a hairline fracture. Diagnosing it as a broken leg in order to ensure its taken seriously would lead to incorrect treatment. The same is often true of using the wrong word for things in an attempt to signal that they are equally important/ real/ serious. Equally important/ real / serious doesn't mean identical

Right. But using that analogy if someone said to me “I think I’ve broken my leg”, I wouldn’t go into the minutiae surrounding what MIGHT actually be wrong and just assist them in getting help.

I actually agree wholeheartedly that PND is not a term that should be applied to men suffering depression post birth. But I think it matters when that discussion takes place

It was more a case of a poster suggesting if a man said he had PND, her first reaction would be “fuck off”.
I said that. However- it is usually considered courteous to consider context before quoting?

I did and disagreed. Go figure

I'm not a medic, so I wouldn't know how much of PND is understood to be hormone-based, or why that is important, or how it's produced in the body, or whatever.

But I do think a distinction between the experience of someone who's given birth, and the experience of someone who hasn't, is fundamentally useful. So, no matter what PND is, I think we need a term that maintains a sense of that distinction.

Having a newborn is a huge shock to the system, and for most people it means sleep deprivation, anxiety, maybe financial stress, maybe all sorts of frightening unexpected possibilities about how your life is changing.

I totally believe anyone in close contact with a baby could develop real problems in that situation. I also think that being the partner of someone who's just had a baby has its own stresses, and they're real and important too. Just at the outside edge, but a not-trivial number of people who have babies come quite close to dying - if you'd seen your partner nearly die in any other situation, you'd be offered counselling and possibly some interesting sedatives for a day or two.

But it isn't the same thing as having physically given birth.

My partner had PND, and I could see it, and the midwife we eventually saw could see it, and she couldn't see it at all. She maintained she was absolutely fine for months. She really couldn't understand that she was actually frighteningly not herself - to the point of being paranoid about everything and basically not functioning. She thought she was fine. Or that it was 'just' sleep deprivation. My partner is one of those people who has massive issues over mental illness and she constantly wanted to tell me she was fine because 'you're sleep deprived too' or 'but you're scared too' (we had a very sick baby for a bit). I was, but I wasn't remotely in the same boat.

The only way I could get through to her was to keep reminding her she'd been through a huge physical and hormonal rollercoaster, and it was not strange that she was struggling with something very different from what I was struggling with. If you do away with the distinction between her situation and mine, you make it impossible for a woman who's like her to recognise that she is struggling.

When someone gives birth that's an absolutely massive thing physically for a body to do, you go through lots of hormonal and physical changes. You spend 9 months pregnant and then you are not any more, go through a fairly traumatic event to get the baby out (potentially with tears and trauma to the body), then you have a drop in hormones etc. PND is a women only condition. It may not be 100% hormonal but I think that it is almost always to do with giving birth.

Men do not give birth. They can definitely have depression after the birth of a baby, but it is not PND. And that is fine, it doesnt belittle their condition, its simply a different condition with different triggers and causes but potentially the same symptoms. If you start diluting the meaning of PND you might as well do away with the name altogether and call it all depression, and that would be helpful for precisely no one.

I think calling it pnd isn't helpful because if a man came to me and said he had pnd I would internally roll my eyes and think " here we go", I would check myself afterwards of course and try to help but that would be my natural reaction. A man says he's severely depressed after the birth of his child and I automatically try to help him. Saying he has PND just feels a bit like he's trying to appropriate female conditions and I don't think helps anyone.

I think it should be called PND. They're hardly out to steal the name for the fun of it??

NC for this.
I'm not sure what I should say regarding this.
After my "Not Post Nate's depression" in which I self harmed. I was lucky enough to be put in touch with a small group of other men who didn't suffer with PND. It was a great help to me and the other dads who got to attend this, it was a group that had been set up by a lady who's husband had killed himself after the birth of their child.
She believed he was suffering from PND, I'm not sure she was bothered by the term being used for men.
It exists and whatever you want to call it there are a lot more men out there who suffer from it. Sometimes a little bit of sensitivity to a subject would be great.

I would also eye roll and think 'fuck off'. Actually id think 'becayse its not all about you anymore', but thats unfair and there should be a space for men to explore their feelings. But not with perinatal mh teams and not under the umbrella of pnd.
There is nothing left for women.

@runingdad 👏 👏
I really don't know some people on this thread have an issue!!!
Women and men need support following a birth.
End of story, no discussion required!

Anyone who would roll their eyes at someone admitting they are struggling with mental should be ashamed of themselves

runningdad

My point is absolutely NOT that men don’t suffer depression. Its that PND is afrmale specific condition that HAS to be defined as such or diagnostic criteria mean nothing.

It cannot be called PND. It should be picked up more often and more effectively and treatment should be available.

I hope you’re feeling better. Could I ask a q or two (please don’t feel obligated.)

How did you receive help?
How do you think would be the best way to screen new dads for depression/anxiety in these situations?

Women and men need support following a birth.End of story, no discussion required!

Has anyone said otherwise?