Jun 10
4
Men in Danger of Postpartum Depression Too?
New research is showing that men are at risk for developing postpartum depression after their partner has a child, just like the mother does. The only difference is that it is not internally, hormonally driven, but rather it is environmentally caused by the stress and adjustment of having a child. Having a baby, as you may or may not know, entails many changes to your life and your routine.
Not only that, it can add stress to a relationship since you are just figuring out how to balance the daily duties of parenthood, and both parents have to take responsibility for the baby’s needs. Things like sex fall by the wayside, and couples really need to focus on staying connected this way, no matter how exhausted they might be, because sex is a natural stress reliever and helps to build bonds that are broken down by the stressors of every day life.
Sad to say, but babies, while they are a blessing and add so much to your life, they also add stress to a relationship, and they also take focus and attention off of the relationship itself. You stop diverting so much energy into the relationship and making sure eachother’s needs are taken care of, and you begin to redirect all of that focus to the baby. This can spell disaster, especially for relationships that have fatal flaws to begin with.
It is one of the reasons that my husband and I have decided we are probably not going to have children. We love kids, we enjoy them, and we certainly think they’re adorable and entertaining, but we just know our own limitations, and we both have full time jobs and also side businesses, which take up the majority of our time.
Fathers have postpartum depression about 10-20% of the time, just like mothers do. The research that was done found that the majority of both partners having postpartum depression occurs around month 3-6 of the baby’s life. They said that the most common occurrence of both partners having postpartum depression is here in the US, and they speculate that it is because this is the standard time period that most parents are going back to work after baby arrives, since the maternity leave is 3 months at most US companies.
The added stress of going back to work AND caring for Jr. really take a toll on the psyche, and for some people it results in depression. This depression can be characterized by lack of energy, feelings of hopelessness, and for men mostly they get more snappy and irritable.
