Authors: Paula Nicolson
ISBN-13: 9780415163637, ISBN-10: 0415163633
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Taylor & Francis, Inc.
Date Published: June 1998
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Post-Natal Depression challenges the expectation that it is normal to be a "happy mother." Up to 90% of new mothers experience some form of depression, but traditional medical accounts pathologize it. Arguing that many of the issues linked to post-natal depression are social rather than biological, Nicolson sets women's own accounts alongside expert evidence, and provides a radical critique of the traditional medical and social science explanations. The book supplies a systematic feminist psychological analysis of women's experiences following childbirth and argues that, far from being an abnormal, undesirable, pathological condition, post- natal depression is a normal, healthy response to a series of losses.
List of tables | ||
Acknowledgements | ||
Introduction | 1 | |
1 | Women's experiece of motherhood | 5 |
2 | Competing explanations of post-natal depression | 23 |
3 | The context of post-natal depression | 36 |
4 | Post-natal care and 'maternity blues' | 54 |
5 | Reflexivity, intervention and the construction of past-natal depression | 68 |
6 | Loss, happiness and post-natal depression: the ultimate paradox | 87 |
7 | Knowledge, myth and the meaning of post-natal depression | 99 |
App. I | Profiles of the participants | 111 |
App. II | Methods | 125 |
App. III | Interview guide | 131 |
App. IV | Postal questionnaire | 132 |
References | 133 | |
Author index | 142 | |
Subject index | 148 |