No doubt Tom Cruise will feel validated. Years ago, he attacked Brooke Shields for taking Paxil for her postpartum depression, instead insisting that she needed vitamin therapy and exercise.

Interestingly, nobody ever seems to mention a complete lack of sleep. One thing that doctors seem to be vehemently opposed to is co-sleeping. I understand why, and I do NOT allow children in my bed, but after a month or two of sleeping in 1-2 hour fragments, I literally could NOT stay awake to nurse for 10 minutes.

Lack of sleep (and lack of deep sleep) can mess up just about everything in the body!

When my kids started sleeping through the night I definitely became all around healthier and felt better.

One last thought. Giving birth is hard on the body. Everyone knows that. With our societal "eye on the prize" of getting through labor & delivery, there's not much talk about the fact that the new mom will HURT for awhile, and not necessarily a little hurt. It can be a lot to cope with all at once, and the unexpectedness of some of it doesn't help.

I wrote about the benefits of co-sleeping in a column. Note the very important caution at the end of the paragraph:

http://www.advicegoddess.com/ag-column-archives/2011/08/booty-rest.html

It is good that your wife is sleeping with the baby. Anthropologist and infant sleep expert Dr. James J. McKenna finds that co-sleeping babies cry less and breast-feed more often and for longer durations. They tend to synchronize their breathing with the sleeping parent -- perhaps training themselves in how to breathe -- and spend less time in the deepest stages of sleep, during which quick arousals to recover from apneas (pauses in breathing) are more difficult for them. Because, like SUVs, sleeping parents are prone to rollover, and because a baby can be smothered by blankets or a soft mattress, it's safest if the mother sleeps with the baby in a sidecar or bassinet next to her.

I think our hunter-gatherer ancestors had bigger fish to fry: if you don't find something to eat today, you don't eat.

Hunger focuses the mind. And yes, the probably had no choice but to co-sleep with their infants.

One hypothesis I've read that possibly explains postpartum depression: It is a mechanism for allowing women to commit infanticide in situations where she or the tribe's survival is best served by the baby not being there, or when the odds are that the baby isn't going to make it. It's an uncomfortable thought, perhaps, but one worth considering.

Amid all the theories about postpartum depression, the simplest seems to be:

You're exhausted; you're in pain; your life has just been upended; and, most important, you regret your decision to have a child.

> exploring the evidence that links postpartum
> depression to early weaning, deficient diet,
> inactivity, not enough sunshine, and lack of
> family support.

That's quite an array. I spent a several minutes listing a few more entries to make the point, but the sarcasm module doesn't kick in until noon on Fridays, and that looks silly enough on its own.

> Wray cautions:

…Amy.

Stop.

So far I've never had postpartum depression with any of my kids. I've never been particularly exhausted past the first week either. We co-sleep in the sense that baby is next to our bed in their own bassinet until they are about 6 months old and can sit up. I generally don't have a lot of family support either as I find my in-laws to be too stressful and obnoxious to deal with and don't want them around. My husband helps out with meals if I need it (not that it's too hard or time consuming to throw meat in the oven or microwave frozen veggies). The friends I have known to suffer from PPD have been the ones with the most help where they are able to just lie around all day for weeks without having to get into any sort of normal routine because people have brought them tons of meals, clean their houses, etc. Interestingly, my vegan friend has had to be hospitalized after each child for PPD, malnutrition, and severe anemia. I can definitely see a connection to diet and overall sense of well being. If I am not able to eat like I normally do (lots of meat, dairy, and veggies) I feel very run down physically and emotionally.

> Wray cautions:

Okay, we covered that part.

This compelling body of evidence, pulled together in a forthcoming issue of the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, does not yet show that these modern changes actually cause postpartum depression.

"Compelling"!... Except for the part where, y'know, it doesn't actually mean anything. Because Science!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-mmmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy...

That's all fucked up. I mean, I didn't even read it the first time, because "Wray cautions:" was warning enough that bullshit was in the air.

As someone who suffered from severe vitamin d deficiency (discovered via blood test) I can tell you first hand it f'cks with your brain. My depression and violent thinking patterns evaporated after three days after D supplementation.

The fetus commandeers vitamins out of your body while pregnant. If you have any wholes in your diet or lifestyle, pregnancy can be a challenge.

I'm glad I found that whole before I had my kid...

Wiki-

To this end, APS publishes several high-impact journals, holds an annual meeting....

WTF is a "high-impact journal"?

Amy, this is the language of hucksters. These people are bullshit artists.

Do you suppose they've ever held an annual meeting with the publisher of Lobster's favorite "scientific journal"? Because that guy, a guy with a psychology degree who teaches business classes in a community college, also has an annual conference.

So, y'know, they could probably get together at a Hampton Inn and science each other really wet 'n hard.

But Amy!… Is she high-impact?

The assitude is all hers.

Do you seriously, seriously think that the cause of human understanding is affirmed through the use of presskit blowjobbery? In academe?

Could it be any more obvious that the Wiki entry is a vanity work, composed by its subject? There are resources to track the authorship of Wiki pages... Would you bet that this one didn't come from Arizona, or from someplace similarly intimate to the organization?

"High-impact" is not a motherfucking "credential."

"chronic inflammation"

Seems to be the new buzz word for anything they can't diagnose and treat yet.

So all we need now is a double blind study of ten thousand pregnant women.

Even back in the 80's they had a suspicion that lacK of B vitamins were somehow involved in post partum depression.

I chewed ice obsessively from about five months pregnant to two months after each kids was born. Another sign of b vitamin deficiency, so they say.

> Seems to be the new buzz word for anything
> they can't diagnose and treat yet.

Well, yeah, but it's a great buzz word. When Lustig, or Amy even, suggests that a long-term, low-grade infection is (merely) implicated in a lot of late-life illnesses, it's easy to imagine why this might be so.

An aunt suffered dementia, and her last coherent words described her tardiness in getting to the dentist; this was just as such a link was discussed in the newspapers. So, like, that's me, feeling the power on the streets of Anecdote City.

It's a class of illness which would mean nothing, statistically, across the vast majority of the human experience. Barely-detectable swelling of the gum by a molar for two days doesn't count for much if you're not going to survive your twentieth winter anyway, and will be battling four other clans in the valley if you do. But if you're approaching your 90th Christmas, who knows what those infections have meant to the rest of your body?

I love women's stories about preg-food. They're always weirdly specific and shamelessly indulgent.

…So I reached in through storefront gate, grabbed that weasel baker by his flour-dusted throat and said 'Listen, you little sugar-viper, I don't give a rat's ass about being late to visit your Grandma in the hospital. You're going to open the door, turn on the lights, and you're gonna sell me another one of those goddamn blueberry muffins, do you hear me? The ones from last week. That is a thing that is GOING TO HAPPEN. Do you hear me? Yes, the ones with the amber frosting spiral on top... Three loops to the center. I don't care if you have to sweep the crumbs off the floor of the display case to pack one into a ridged paper cup, you are going to sell me another one of THOSE muffins RIGHT NOW....

APS is a major psychological association. I can assure you that, regardless of what you think about their ideas, neither Martie Haselton nor any of her students made it up.

An "impact factor" for a journal is a technical term for a measure that reflects the average number of citations to articles published in that journal. It is frequently referred to in order to understand how important the research a journal publishes typically is: more important, more citations, higher impact factor. It's not a perfect measure, but it is a real thing.

It's absolutely wrong that all cases of PPD involve an unwanted child. Both of my children were planned.

I've suffered from major depressive episodes since 1999. My doctor and I both should have realized I had a near-100% chance of developing PPD.

> APS is a major psychological association.

Oh! They're major. Perhaps I didn't understand.

Kidding! You're saying that as if it's supposed to matter to other people as we judge their gas-baggery, because just like other professional associations (the American Federation of Teachers or the Service Employees International Union), they're major... Either large by numbers or industry impact.

But no. The Wiki page made it clear that it was a group for supporting the aspirations of psychologists, whatever they are. They expect to be admired for this?

> I can assure you that, regardless of what
> you think about their ideas, neither Martie
> Haselton nor any of her students made it up.

Weird, weird wording. First: Nobody said anyone made anything up.

Second, with a shopping list of factors like that, who could describe them as collected from the same shelf?... Of course they 'made it up': They don't have any meaningful (let alone thesis-affirming) data yet! Someone's reaching. Not a problem… Inventive, playful thinking is what makes civilization go. But let's not pretend these are the purchases of a coherent taste.

> An "impact factor" for a journal is a
> technical term

It's trade jargon, not arithmetic calculation. It blindingly reflects all the reprehensible careerism afflicting science today... significance chasers and all the rest... most especially in the social sciences.

> It's not a perfect measure, but it is a
> real thing.

Similarly, the ratings for "Friends" during the Anniston years— We were told to care, but....

> Posted by: A psychologist

Are you like that feller down in Tennessee? Lobster's friend, the psychologist who teaches business at a community college?

Why would a "high-impact" journal bother to describe themselves that way? (Amy used to have a commenter who described herself as "Lovelysoul": No.) You guys discredit yourselves when you imagine that puffery about popularity should enthuse people about goofy speculations. I'm embarrassed for you.

Let's look at this passage again. Perhaps it'll help if you read it aloud:

Wray cautions:

This compelling body of evidence, pulled together in a forthcoming issue of the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, does not yet show that these modern changes actually cause postpartum depression.

Best wishes, Sosij... That's tough stuff. I hope everybody's smiling nowadays.

They forgot in-laws. Dealing with visits from the in-laws.

Amy,

Having the child in a bassinet next to you does NOT help! You can't nurse a child who is in a bassinet! I can't speak for "side cars" because I don't know a darned thing about them.

I do realize there is a risk of sleeping next to a baby, even on the floor. However, it is less than the risk associated with driving/cooking/cleaning while severely sleep deprived for months on end. The paranoia in all the parenting advice doesn't consider the relative risks of different decisions, but treats each in a vacuum. This goes in hand with my comments on the paranoia and kids' photos thread.

I think it's reasonable to posit that diet plays a role. I had moderate PPD (I could still function, but I also sobbed uncontrollably over everything & felt overwhelmingly negative outlook on parenthood). Thinking about it now, we survived those first few months on pasta dishes & fast food. I think a few other factors contribute as well, too, tho.
1) The kid. My son had acid reflux. Every feeding was a battle. Followed by a puke-a-thon. It made almost every interaction with Baby a struggle.
2) I wonder if C section vs natural birth has an effect. I remember reading that C section may result in a harder come down from pregnancy hormones, especially if the woman never went into labor proper.

Oh for fuck's sake! You can still feed a baby regardless of where they sleep. You pick them up! A bassinet is not some machine that traps baby so that they can't be taken out to be fed, changed, held, etc. That's just absolutely ridiculous to state otherwise. What you're really saying is it's much more convenient for you to lie there like a lump and hope baby finds your boob all on their own without you having to do anything because parenting and infant care might interfere with your sleep. That's the argument I always hear from cosleeping advocates, the convenience of not having to wake up or get up.

I can definitely see vitamin deficiencies contributing to mood disorders. I had a severe vitamin D deficiency a few winters ago. I was overly sensitive emotionally and felt like I had a groggy headache all the time. I was unable to take the high-dose vitamin D supplements because they affect blood clotting factors (I have a clotting disorder) and had to alter my diet to boost my levels. It took a few months to feel back to normal, but it worked.

> Dealing with visits from the in-laws.

The woman in my life most deeply afflicted by this often mentioned them was well. Often. Them.

AS well.

I'm gonna throw out there the hormone dump that occurs but also the anemia can definitely contribute to this. Ya'll touched on it with the vitamin D deficiency, but ice chewing (pica) is also a sign of iron deficiency or just straight up blood loss anemia. In an average vaginal delivery, blood loss is about a pint and for a C-section is 2 pints, and doctors RARELY do transfusions for mothers unless they drop below low an 8 on their hemoglobin (believing the risks outweigh the benefits). So they send you home generally quite anemic on top of everything else - hormones, milk letting down, and severe pain. It doesn't have so much to do with regretting the decision to have a baby, as it is having your energy focused on someone else completely when you feel like utter shit. Some women spit babies out like watermelon seeds; others, well, it's just not a fun event. Makes me depressed just thinking about it.

Ladies, I love you all, and some of the dearest in my life have been pummeled by this thing... Brutalized.

But as we look over the suggested causes in these comments, and look at the eagerness of researchers to appear heroically engaged ('Remain calm!'), this might be an occasion for humility.

BunnyGirl,

I wasn't saying the kid has to stay in the bassinet, so please do not suggest that I did.

The only reason sleep came up was in connection with postpartum depression. Sleep deprivation can severely impact mood, so I wasn't bringing it up because "oh dear, having a child means I don't get my beauty rest," but because it is a highly correlated - and possibly causal - part of the subject at hand!

The point about the bassinet was simply that having them in the room is NOT some magic wand for new parents getting adequate sleep. Many people either seem to think it DOES equate with more sleep or they at least speak as if that's true.

As for:
...lie there like a lump and hope baby finds your boob all on their own without you having to do anything...

Really? Seriously? Did you not read what I wrote at all? You assume a lot, and your assumptions are wrong. You'd know that if you had read what I wrote about how I ended up co-sleeping (which was passing out while nursing).

Before you go lobbing hate at people, maybe read what they wrote next time.

Kevin's comment about regretting the decision to have a child... no. Depression is not the same as regret or being overwhelmed. Just not the same at all. I am sure there are moms out there who do regret - just based on the vast number of people. However, that's not what we're talking about.

I'd bet diet has a big role, along with inadequate sunshine (vitamin D & helping set the body clock). However, given that there are cases of animals who abandon their young, etc. I am inclined to think that there might just be something there biochemically and independent of modern lifestyles.

The consequence is that the modern western diet is lacking in organ meats

Hey, I've got a solution to this that doesn't involve taking supplements - eat some tasty liver, brains, kidneys, etc!

All this worry about whether you're getting the 'right' amount of this or that. Mix it up and you'll get enough of everything. Further to that, I believe that having an inconsistent, chaotic diet and eating schedule helps in conditioning your body to tolerate short shocks of famine of any particular nutrient. See Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Where I diverge from the paleos is that they seem to recommend a regimented, controlled diet to somehow return us to the random 'catch what you can' diet they claim we evolved to. Missing the point big time.

Lack of sunlight and vitamin D deficiency? Don't make me laugh. You need so little exposure to sun to generate sufficient vitamin D. I live in a temperate, sunny climate (Melbourne, Australia), generally wear short sleeves, never wear sunscreen, spend a lot of time outside due to my job and also smoking. And yet I managed to get diagnosed via blood test that I was critically low in vitamin D. That just tells me the test was rubbish. Probably the wrong time of day or something.

> Some women spit babies out like
> watermelon seeds

For the first time ever, I wanna watch… Just to see how pissed the kid is as it bounces off the linoleum.

Dubtee-eff? Seriously? Good morning?

I don't know anything about your specific situation Shannon. I know many others who cosleep and they started doing so because they decided it was a bother to actually wake up and remove the child from a bassinet next to the bed to nurse them. They have bragged about how great it is that they just sleep topless and their baby finds their boobs without them having to wake up or be involved on any level besides a milk machine. Of course, these are also now some of the same people that can't get their 4-year-olds to sleep in their own beds. I've seen multiple injured babies from cosleeping and don't feel it's at all safe in a regular adult bed. Others find nothing wrong with it. Those I find speaking out so in favor of cosleeping in the parental bed also do it as a matter of laziness. The alternatives of using a bassinet are met with cries of too inconvenient and having to actually wake up and sit up to get them out.

Maybe I'm just lucky that my children all slept 8-hour stretches by the time they were 6-8 weeks old and with the exception of the first week would sleep 4 hours at night between feedings.

BunnyGirl,

My kids didn't sleep through the night until ages 3 and 4.5. I only sleep-nursed when I had to drive the next day (pediatrician) or if I was in danger of falling over sleeping and thus in danger of dropping the baby. I never had the child in my bed, and it took over a month to get to the point where I didn't really have a choice.

I understand the laziness aspect, but please don't lob it around nilly-willy. Postpartum can be a very hard time, and some people develop medical issues. So, while you may have a point in general, when you are talking to a specific person, either listen to what their story is, or withhold voicing your judgement because they might have had a very different situation than yours. It is the kind thing to do... and it keeps you from looking like an ass.