Research--Post-Partum Depression in Dads

[Anonymous]

Hi,
As you probably figured out I am married to waggy. While he gets the pleasure of staying home with our daughter I have to work and go to school.
I am currently doing a research paper on Post-Partum Depression. I have found research supporting the fact that men also get this illness. So I am going to ask you to be honest as I am trying to find out if this occurs more in SAHD than in other fathers. I am also trying to answer weather men get this more if thier wife suffered from it.
If you could answer the following questions for me it would be helpful (remeber to be honest)
!
1) Have you or any other SAHD you know suffered from PPD?
2) Did your wife/Significant other suffer from PPD?
3) If you did were you correctly diagnosed and treated?

If you have any comments it would be appreciated.
Thanks
Waggy's Wife

[Indy]

My wife's doctor put her on Prozac during her pregnancy to prevent PPD--or at least knock the edge off. It evidently worked, as I don't remember any meltdowns. As for me, I don't think I ever experienced it.

[hockeydad]

Neither me nor the wife got it. Haven't heard from any other dad that they had it either. Exhaustion, grumpiness, and some realistic worries about the future but nothing remotely clinical. Interesting idea though. Keep us posted if you find anything juicy.

[Remington]

Me and most men I know are happy as long as the wife is happy. If they get PPD then it may make the men unhappy too. So it may not be PPD that the husbands get but maybe they feel unhappy because their wives are unhappy.

I would try to see the relationship between the husband and the wife. If all men that think they have PPD have wives with PPD then it may be a good indicator.

You may want to see if there are any cases where the husband has pp depression and the wife does not. I think you will find this to be rare.

I could be wrong!

[aaronlc1]

I do not know if what I felt was that, but I did feel a depression stage awhile after the baby was born. It is a lot of stress on both of us preparing for the baby to come, and when the baby arived it was premature, so I sleep in the hospital taken care of my wife. Everybody came to see how she was doing but not ever me. Whcih I know sounds selfish, but it was in the back of my mind. I started to get worn out, for everybody took care of her and I started to loose sleep sleeping in a chair. Then when we went home she was on bed rest so I did most of the feedings, whcih of corse were ever three hours. So the baby really bonded with me, so now she will not eat for to many people. So yes I did feel some depression, I just sometimes wanted to go away for a vacation sometimes. I am sure everybody feels that.

[phreak]

I have to say that I agree with Remmington, most men are happy as long as their significant other is happy. I did notice that the wife had ppd but it was not severe enough to get diagnosed professionally. That was about the third month the baby was with us and I noticed that my stress levels went through the roof as well, bloodpressure went up and the future seemed a little more bleak. This feeling did not last long, as we started to put routines into place to alleviate some of the pressure off of both of us. but to answer your questions

I've never known any man to have clinical ppd

My significant other did, and as a result my stress went up

[Jackson's Dad]

I didn't get depressed, per se, but the first month was hard.. much harder than we expected. We both felt overwhelmed, exhausted, and disconnected. Luckily, we seemed to stagger our down times, so that one of us was always up and helping. I know some people just roll with it ("oh, now we have a baby, ok") but not me.

And Aaron, sheesh, with a preemie, it's gotta be so much tougher!

[aaronlc1]

Yeah both my children were early, my first was two pounds and was two months early and my second was four pounds and about a month early. they are three years apart so it is not so bad.