It's hard to imagine a joke more cruel than postpartum mood disorder:
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="color: #000000;">Nine months of excited anticipation centred around the joy of a new baby</span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="color: #000000;">BUT </span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="color: #000000;"> instead you experience a full-frontal attack of depression, anxiety, OCD, intolerable mood swings or at its worst - psychosis!</span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left;">And perhaps the worst part is that you don't even realize at first that you have something that is a </span><strong style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #800080;"><em><a title="postpartum depression treated with estrogen" href="http://jeffreydach.com/2010/02/19/bioidentical-hormones-relieve-anxiety-by-jeffrey-dach-md.aspx">treatable condition</a></em></span></strong><span style="text-align: left;">.  When you are the one in the throes of a mood swing you may be the last one to be aware of it.  Even your family and friends may not recognize what's happening to you. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left;">Part of the problem is that many people don't know what postpartum mood disorder looks like.  Before I had postpartum mood disorder I thought that it was called Postpartum Depression, and it is <span style="color: #000000;"><em>but that's only a small part of it</em></span>.  That's why you won't usually hear me referring to PPD or Postpartum Depression - it's misleading.  Postpartum Mood Disorder (PPMD) covers all the mood disorders so I prefer the term and think it needs to be more widely used.  Here's why:</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: left;">Dr. Katharina Dalton, MD  linked postpartum mood disorders to a progesterone deficiency and treated her patients with - wait for it...wait for it.... PREVENTION!!!</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">She prevented the onset of postpartum mood disorder by administering progesterone immediately after delivery. Supplementation would be continued on an as-needed basis after that - and is perfectly safe while breast feeding, according to Dr. Dalton. In fact, Dr. Dalton asserted that "progesterone enhances lactation, which is an additional bonus."</p>
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<p style="text-align: left;">Postpartum mood disorder is such a cruel joke.  There are times when I think back that I still can't wrap my head around what happened to me.</p>
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