Post-Partum Psychosis
Doctors see some kind of mental disturbance in up to 80% of mothers in the post-partum period, or the few days or weeks after childbirth. Depression is the most common problem, but for about one in 1,000 women the issue is post-partum psychosis. Psychosis is defined as a mental illness characterized by a loss of contact with reality and requires immediate medical attention. Valdimarsdottir et al. decided to determine what characteristics increased the chance of post-partum psychosis by searching through a very large number of first time mothers in Sweden and identifying and studying those women diagnosed this mental illness within ...