Overcoming Baby Blues: A Comprehensive Guide to Perinatal Depression

Professors and practitioners Parker, Eyers, and Boyce draw on their work with Australia's Black Dog Institute, a world-class center for mood disorder diagnosis and treatment, and on patients' own first-person stories, in this caring and comprehensive handbook for dealing with pregnancy-related depression. Initial chapters give a technical overview of screening, diagnosis, and treatment options, distinguishing between the baby blues that affect the majority of new mothers, the perinatal depression (PND) which strikes one in eight women, and the rarer, but even more serious, problem of puerperal psychosis or bipolar disorder. Adopting a kindly, respectful tone, the authors strive to eradicate the stigma of depression with practical and empathetic advice, but the truly convincing testimony comes from the many and varied stories of women working through guilt and feeling relief at asking for, and getting, help. While Australia's maternal care standards (which include home visits, mothercraft nurses, and mother-child centers) are light years ahead of the U.S., American mothers can also learn much from the sage demystification of motherhood and its struggles offered here. (Jan.)