preview

Post Partum Depression Research Paper

Decent Essays

Life for a woman is never the same after she gives birth to a child because, even before the woman goes through labor, she has experienced the effects an unborn baby has on her body; a woman, the birth giver, changes the most because she loses something that has been a part of her body for nine months. During the time right after the birth, she suffers from separation. The predominant reason for this is because, during the pregnancy, the hormonal levels of a woman are often disrupted and confused. They increase and decrease frequently, yet soon finds an equilibrium while the baby grows inside the womb. After the birth, the hormone levels are trying to balance again, after the rises and falls due to pregnancy, which causes a woman’s emotions …show more content…

All women can see this, but only a few will speak up when they are aware of the situation. Oftentimes, they stay back and simply do as they are told; this happened frequently in the late 1800s. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” oppression was seen frequently by the readers; they understood what the woman was experiencing was unfair and despicable, yet they could only read as the oppression destroyed the woman’s life. John did his best to heal his wife with the only knowledge he had, yet his knowledge was faulty and stood on very little factual information. He was not educated in post-partum depression; he considered her illness to be purely “a slight hysterical tendency” (486). When a woman suffered during this time period from an unexplainable illness, this was often a physician’s thought. The physician treated any unknown illness, including post-partum depression, as hysteria until he was proven otherwise. The narrator told her story as a first-person account of what happens when illness is not treated correctly; however, she suffers even more because the two men she is closest two are also physicians who believe they are in the right. She tells her story by explaining that she has no control over the situation or the treatment because of her predicament and her family. Because of her lack of control, and inability to be heard, along with John’s overpowering decisions, “The

Get Access