Dads get postpartum depression, too!

[ccharles000]

The pregnancy was easy, the delivery a breeze. This was the couple’s first baby, and they were thrilled. But within two months, the bliss of new parenthood was shattered by postpartum depression.

A sad, familiar story. But this one had a twist: The patient who came to me for treatment was not the mother but her husband.

A few weeks after the baby arrived, he had become uncharacteristically anxious, sad and withdrawn. He had trouble sleeping, even though his wife was the one up at night breast-feeding their new son. What scared her enough to bring him to my office was that he had become suicidal.

Up to 80 percent of women experience minor sadness — the so-called baby blues — after giving birth, and about 10 percent plummet into severe postpartum depression. But it turns out that men can also have postpartum depression, and its effects can be every bit as disruptive — not just on the father but on mother and child.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/health/08mind.html?_r=1

[Jamastiene]

1. Many men also sometimes share symptoms of other

painful things normally associated with women too. Many men suffer from a "male menopause" type scenario and at last one man I know knows when his wife is getting ready to cycle. He feels her pain, literally.

I don't know if they are somehow more in tune to these things or if it has always been and it is just now being discovered. My bet would be that it always has been for many men and it is just now being reported.

[The Straight Story]

2. If we had a men's forum, this would be moved there...but men don't have issues

:evilgrin: