I want to talk today about a phone call I received yesterday from a lady who was in massive distress as a result of suffering severe postnatal depression and had sought help from several sources all to no avail. She is currently taking some medication that she thinks might be of some benefit but is unsure of this.
The bottom line is that the condition of postnatal depression is a critical condition if the mother is isolated to some degree in the world of her child or children. It makes it very difficult especially with the symptoms that come along with the postnatal depression.
Commonly, the person suffering postnatal depression becomes anti-social. The underlying reason would be their lack of energy – just the feeling that they are totally and absolutely unable to cope. This leads to depression as a result of feeling inadequate, of feelings of guilt about the things that a “good Mother” should be doing.
The situation of postnatal depression is a bit of a Catch-22. My experience in working with mothers who experience postnatal depression is that it almost is like the battery needs charging – that battery inside is worn out. The drain on the battery results from growing a child, let alone giving birth to a child, then nourishing the child.
Depending on the constitution of the individual mother, this can have many and varied impacts on them. As I have already described there is the exhaustion and, with everything else, there is the emotional upheaval. Commonly, there is insomnia and also headaches in some situations. There is just complete fatigue and that overall overwhelming, dark cloud sitting on that individual’s life.
I have found over the years that by using a very gentle form of acupuncture technique we are able to restore balance to the life of the mother. From an oriental medicine point of view, we are able to restore the nutritional Chi – to put some more vibrancy back into that individual’s battery.
The patient will commonly respond quite rapidly to the acupuncture treatment in feeling more energetic and obviously less depressed because they are feeling more capable of doing things.
One of the very key factors is actually strengthening the basic energy of the mother so that they feel like socialising. In my opinion, it is an integral part of the restoration of the health of the mother to be actually wanting to, and able to, socialise because depression invariably causes isolation which seals the pattern of depression.
So the acupuncture treatment, in my experience, can provide the pendulum energetically to swing out of that deep, dark condition and get things moving on a more upwards spiral – not a straight line.
It gives me huge pleasure to work with people who are suffering from postnatal depression. It is a very tough call to be trying to rear a child or children with this condition. So if you know anyone suffering from postnatal depression or you yourself are having issues with it, please give us a call at either our Brisbane acupuncture clinic or our clinic on the Gold Coast.
