Acknowledging that the teenage years are known to produce emotional turmoil in adolescents, it is almost hard to imagine the added stress and emotion of pregnancy. This may be why there are thousands of pregnant teens who try to commit suicide every year. Although this statistic is shocking and appalling, the tendency to become depressed and the rollicoaster of emotions related to pregnancy are very real. Just as there are steps of physical change during pregnancy there are also almost as many psychological changes that women face.
The first emotional state that most pregnant girls face when they find out they are pregnant is shock and then denial. Most girls dont want to believe that this has happened to them. When the panic settles, the
I believe that mental health is not well discussed, or known, in today’s culture. People could struggle with mental health daily and others could have no idea. There are many different types of mental health issues, and one specific issue that is rarely discussed is postpartum depression. Postpartum depression is a specific type of depression that new mothers can experience after the birth of their child. (Schacter, Gilbert, Wegner, Nock, 2012). The changing hormones a mother can experience directly after birth cause this condition. Postpartum depression can cause a mother to feel sad, guilty, and even experience thoughts of suicide. Postpartum depression may be discussed in the text, but the causes and even the treatments are not.
Adolescence is popularly known to be a very tumultuous stage in a person’s life. In the adolescent stage (also coined the identity vs. role confusion stage by theorist Erik Erikson) bodies are changing rapidly, emotions are unfamiliar and unexplainable, and refraining from succumbing to peer pressure is more challenging than ever.
Many women choosing to have an abortion are unaware of the psychological effects it will have on them. Many are affected for years or maybe even lifetime after the procedure. Abortion can affect each woman differently, some claim that abortion has negative effects on women’s mental health. Women have abortions for different reasons within different personal, social, economic, and cultural contexts. All of these may lead to variability in women’s psychological reactions following the abortion. This paper will focus on answering the following questions:
Having a stable human relationship can be hard to find living under these conditions. Therefore, the group is able to provide the mothers with the support they need in order to overcome the obstacles of teen pregnancy.
In terms of public health and associated concern, in the recent years it has been observed that mental illness has major impact on pregnant women and postpartum period which has become a concern of public health lately. The aspect that associated with pregnancy of women and their mental health that has brought this topic in the forefront is the fact that mental health problems like depression and anxiety have the probability to impact women twice as compared to men. The severity of the situation seen from a global perspective, shows that depression is one of the major reasons of maternal mental illness during the childbearing age of women, which is approximately between the age group of 18 to 40 years. As a result of this to the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) it contributes approximately 7% of the entire GBD for women of all age group (Leham, 2015).
Despite the physical changes that a woman is to expect during her pregnancy, a major concern that requires attention is a period of expected feelings of depression that a woman may encounter known as baby blues. Although normal, and expected baby blues can lead into post partum depression that involves a myriad of emotions and mood swings. If not addressed postpartum depression can lead to a more severe form of baby blues known in the clinical world as postpartum non-psychotic depression that requires professional intervention. The therapeutic goal during this time is to prevent the new mother from committing suicide where she poses a danger to both herself and her newborn.
Abortion can cause periods of depression in which the pain can encysted. Some women become aggressive or nervous, or even hyperactive. Anxiety can find an answer food such as bulimia or, conversely, anorexia. For others, psychosomatic reactions will take over with stomach aches, absence of periods, headaches, the loss of self-esteem ("I'm bad, I'm unworthy, painful for others"), the fear of not being pregnant again or anxiety of existential insecurity are consequences commonly observed. Some episodes of a woman’s life can relive the acutely suffering felt at the time of abortion: the date in which the child had been born, or the anniversary date of the abortion, the desire to make present the dead child, are conducive to outbreaks of suffering intensely lived as, for example, anxiety or depressive
Adolescent stress is an important part of their lives and it is important for it to be monitored regularly in order for them to feel the benefit of learning important stress management skills. About 39% of the adolescents undergo depression at one point or another and they seem to handle their problems in a way that is constructive. This stress and depression ranges from mild to severe with the young people often relying on negative or passive behaviors in their attempts to deal effectively with their problems. Stress is usually characterized by frustration, sadness, worry, tension and withdrawal. There are many reasons that lead to stress in adolescents and younger people. Various studies have been conducted to determine the causes of stress among adolescents. The
Untreated perinatal mental illnesses have also been linked with an increased risk of suicide. According to Mendez-Bustos et. al suicide has been shown to be one of the leading causes of maternal mortality in the last two decades and in the perinatal period the rate is not showing any signs of improvement. In 2005 among women aged 15 to 44 years suicide was the fourth cause of death in the US (Mendez-Bustos, Lopez-Castroman, Baca-García, & Ceverino, 2013). A 2006-2008 review of maternal death in the UK identified psychiatric disorders and suicide in particular as the leading cause of maternal death. In those same years there were 1.27 maternal deaths per 100,000 maternal deliveries in the UK as a result of mental health problems (CMACE, 2011).
Regarding public health and associated concern, in the recent years, it has been observed that mental illness has a major impact on pregnant women and the postpartum period which has become a concern of public health lately. The aspect that associated with the pregnancy of women and their mental health that has brought this topic to the forefront is the fact that mental health problems like depression and anxiety have the probability to impact women twice as compared to men. The severity of the situation can be seen from the fact that depression is one of the main reasons of maternal mental illness during the childbearing age of women, which is approximately between the age group of 15 to 44 years. As a result of this to the Global Burden of Disease (GBD), it contributes about 7% of the entire GBD for women of all age group (Leham, 2015).
Depression during pregnancy impacts the emotional well-being between a mother and child, resulting in a lost connection between the two. It has been suggested that a lesser maternal attachment can be correlated with depression. Women lacking emotion in their relationships often suffer from depression (Haedt, A., & Keel, P., 2007). The deficit of an interpersonal maternal relationship can be linked back to the mother’s onset of depression during pregnancy. Symptoms of depression are known psychological factors that may contribute to higher rates of negative birth outcomes in women (Giurgescu, C., Engeland, C. G., & Templin, T. N. ,2015). This lack of emotion between a mother and her child can have ultimately negative effects on the child’s attachment and emotional well-being. Just as women with postpartum depression, it is difficult for women with depression during pregnancy to feel close to their offspring, which could lead to emotional or physical
Even though the discussion about mental health has become more common, teenage mental health is often left neglected. 37 percent of students 14 and older drop out of school because of mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and the number continues to grow (“Mental Health by the Numbers”). Untreated mental illness in teens can be particularly debilitating because of the added stress from family life, school, work, and the pressure of adolescence. Teenage brains are still learning and developing, yet some are suffering so much that they commit suicide, the third most common cause of death in young adults (“Suicide”).
Embarrassment is typically one of the first sentiments that a teenager undergoes when she is pregnant. Such an individual is probable to acknowledge her condition and consider that it would be pointless for her to
The movie thirteen is a raw psychodrama directed by Catherine Hardwicke is based on the life of a young teenage girl, Tracy Freeland whom catapults from pre adolescence/childhood to a wild and rebellious thirteen year old girl. Filmed in Los Angeles, Tracey and her mother’s relationship are put to the test when she befriends Evie. Evie is a popular girl from junior high school who introduces her to the world of sex, drugs and self-mutilation. We see a physical and psychological change in Tracey almost overnight, as her kinship with Evie transforms into a toxic relationship. Tracey’s early traumatic life experiences, manifests into a co-morbidity of depression and borderline personality disorder that affects her ability to cope with an
Health issues affect not only the teen mother but also her child. The health issues that both the mother and the child face may be the biggest issue they go throughout the time of pregnancy and giving birth. Many pregnant teens will suffer some sort of medical complication during pregnancy but that is not always the case though. Some of the mental and physical problems they may face include miscarriages which is the loss of a fetus before the 20th week of pregnancy (WebMD), Anemia which is a condition that develops when your blood lacks enough healthy red blood cells or hemoglobin (WebMD), having a premature baby, and Postpartum depression which is a depression that women get after giving birth to a child (WebMD). Having a miscarriage is a very frightening thing all pregnant women fear and can be very stressful when