Postpartum Depression: Era of being reborn

Have you ever seen a lifecycle of butterfly? A butterfly has go through four distinct stages of life to be as beautiful yet fragile creature in this living world. The process starts from an egg, larva i.e caterpillar, pupa i.e. chrysalis, and then an adult i.e. a fly, this process is called Metamorphosis. Metamorphosis is not an easy process as it sounds like, the creature has to go through a lot of pain, shredding of skin, bodily transformations, bleeding and much more to get into the shape of a Butterfly. Many of us have read this while reading science, but have we ever co- related this process with a Women’s Life. Let’s try to understand and compare the life of a woman with the help of Life cycle of Butterfly.

A women’s body goes through four different stages starting from Adolescence, Reproductive Years, Perimenopause, and Post-menopause. The longest phases i.e. almost 20-25 years of a woman’s life are her reproductive years, wherein her body has to go through a lot of changes and transformations. Giving Birth is a magical process and every woman has the super power to experience this mystic in her life. While the conceiving period, there is a beautiful transformation happening in a woman’s body, a new living-being is been getting shape and is ready to see the world through her.

But once the baby is born, the magic starts fading and the body starts exhausting as if there was a battle to be fought had she has conquered it. Every women experiences Baby blues in her first few days of giving birth and many get healed in these period but the unknown and unwanted part of baby blues which a women carries even after the early period of birth gradually turns into “Postpartum Depression.” There are scientific definitions available of the word “Postpartum Depression” - a mood disorder that can affect individuals after childbirth, characterized by persistent sadness, anxiety, and fatigue.

But no one talks about the causes of “Postpartum Depression”, Not ever women has same type of Situations, symptoms and conditions of it. Each woman faces her own independent battle of depression be its home-maker or a working women. For an home-maker, it is a burden of being a perfect mother as per her family, she tries to deal with the imperfections and has to fight with herself for being impeccable. For an working women, she either has to quit her present job or has to make adjustments for baby while she continuous working. Both situations are not easy, when she quits her job she faces FOMO – Fear of Missing out (a worried feeling that one may miss exciting events that other people are going to, especially caused by things you see on social media). And when she makes adjustment for baby and continuous working she faces guilt trip - an experience of feeling guilty about something, especially when such guilt is self-indulgent or unjustified. All the situations mentioned about slowly lead her to Postpartum Depression.

In this phases, she is drained out psychologically which automatically results into physical traumas and changes. As mentioned earlier, every woman has her own independent battle and she has to deal with it her own way. The best thing she can do is talk herself out to someone who understands this and help her realize about her new wings which she has just got through the process of birthing a human being.

She shredded skin, She bleed, She sweated, She Fended and hence she will and she can Bounce back. Though this sounds like the process of Metamorphosis, it is way far stronger than that, as this includes not only regaining herself but also shaping life of new living creature. The best part of giving birth is to identify the power of being “Superwomen”. Every woman should recognize and appreciate and help other women appreciate this super power. This can help fight the “Postpartum Depression”.