I hope you enjoy today’s guest post. It has some great information about how lack of sleep can affect us, including contributing to post-partum depression. If some of this information seems to ring true for you, don’t hesitate to reach out to your doctor.
Post-natal depression is an issue affecting many mothers, who increasingly turn to renowned institutes, such as Penndel Mental Health Center in Pennsylvania, to solve this very complex problem.
Recent research conducted by Stavanger University Hospital in Norway sees Pennsylvania play a major role also in the interpretation of post-natal matters: the study links post-natal depression to a poor sleep cycle, and its analysis of sleep relies on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, developed by the University of Pittsburgh.
According to the study, a postpartum depression could have a detrimental influence on the sleeping quality of mothers. These same sleeping difficulties are also often considered a symptom of depression.
The results found out that, two months after delivery, mothers affected by post-natal depression were likely to suffer a poor sleep quality.
This effect has also been proved to be depending on other relevant factors such as poor relationships with their partners, previous depression or stressful events.
The data, collected between October 2005 and September 2006 from a total of 2,830 women, showed that 60 per cent of mothers involved in the study had post-natal sleep problems, and 16.5 per cent had depressive symptoms. Still according to the study, the average self-reported post-natal sleep was 6.5 hours and the sleep efficiency was 73 per cent.
A common problem with sleeping problems lies in the fact that many mothers don’t recognize them and hardly consider them to be linked to depression.
According to Karen Dorheim, MD and PHD psychiatrist at Stavanger University, tiredness and lack of sleep can often be caused by depression and could affect a mother’s daytime functioning. Dorheim also indicated the completion of depression screening questionnaires as a useful tool to analyse mothers’ problems properly, and called for postpartum women to refer to doctors and other health workers to engage in dialogue and discuss their difficult feelings.

This post brought to you by Best Psychiatrists.