How Mindfulness Can Help Women With Postpartum Depression

More than 3 million American women suffer from postpartum depression each year -- including up to 40 percent of women who have been treated for depression. After working with many new and expecting mothers, Dr. Sona Dimidjian, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder, began to question what her profession was doing to support these women -- and decided to investigate an alternative solution to the conventional treatment. Those options, of psychotherapy and pharmaceuticals, aren't always effective, and many women don't want to take antidepressants during pregnancy or while nursing.  "The majority of women struggling with depression during pregnancy, as well as postpartum depression, get no professional help; among the few who do, most receive antidepressants, despite the fact that survey research shows that most women prefer interventions that don’t include medication," Dimidjian wrote in a recent blog post on Mindful Noggin. "There is a gap between what we offer vulnerable women during pregnancy and what they tell us they want." Her new research offers reason for hope for expectant mothers at risk of depression.  Dimidjian's study, published in December in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, found that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, known as MBCT, is more effective than conventional treatments for preventing postpartum depression. The technique -- which uses meditation and mindfulness exerc...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news