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Using a Murine Model of Psychosocial Stress in Pregnancy as a Translationally Relevant Paradigm for Psychiatric Disorders in Mothers and Infants
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Postpartum depression: it isn't just the blues

Cheryl Tatano Beck1

  • 1University of Connecticut School of Nursing, Storrs, USA. cheryl.beck@uconn.edu

The American Journal of Nursing
|April 28, 2006
PubMed

Postpartum depression is a crippling mood disorder, historically neglected in health care, leaving mothers to suffer in fear, confusion, and silence. Undiagnosed it can adversely affect the mother-infant relationship and lead to long-term emotional problems for the child. This article differentiates postpartum depression from other postpartum mood and anxiety disorders and addresses these aspects of postpartum depression: symptoms, prevalence, risk factors, interventions, and the effects on relationships and child development. Instruments available to screen for postpartum depression are also reviewed.

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