Mental health articles

postpartum psychosis symptoms Episodes of mental illness during pregnancy generally present as predominantly depressive/dysphoric, regardless of mood disorder type (i.e., Unipolar Major Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety Disorders). Still, in the mainstream media
and in the literature, increasing attention is being paid to postpartum psychosis.
Postpartum psychosis is most appropriately considered a phenomenologic descriptor of the most severe of mental health disturbances that occur in perinatal period, rather than an illness of singular etiology. The illnesses that can manifest with psychosis in the postpartum period include major depression with psychotic
features, bipolar I, bipolar II, schizoaffective, unspecified functional psychosis, and brief psychotic disorder. Studies since the 1980s have linked the occurrence of postpartum psychosis to underlying bipolar disorder diagnosis in over 80 % of patients.
Bipolar disorder is widely accepted as the illness underlying most cases of postpartum psychosis.
Postpartum psychosis presents most commonly in the first 2 weeks of the postpartum period, often within days of delivery. Common initial symptoms include severe anxiety, restlessness, depressive mood, sleep disturbances, behavior disturbances, catatonic excitement, delusions, and hallucinations. An early descriptive study pointed to a picture of postpartum psychosis differing from nonaffective psychoses, namely more marked reports of “delirium like” confusion and behavioral disorganization .
As compared with nonpeurperal counterparts, postpartum psychotic episodes present more commonly with a waxing and waning picture of thought disorganization, pronounced hallucinations and perceptual symptoms, delusions of control or influence, lack of insight, and social withdrawal.When detected, postpartum psychosis is considered a psychiatric mergency and often requires psychiatric hospitalization .

Tags: postpartum psychosis, symptoms