爸爸们也会患上产后抑郁症

人们都认为,新生命的诞生会给每一位父母带来无尽的喜悦和快乐,但是事实却不尽如此,妈妈们会在怀孕和生产的过程中产生抑郁的情绪.但是最近,心理学家们发现,怀孕和生育的过程,同样会让爸爸们患上抑郁症.

The birth of a child should be a joyful time for any parent.
But the image of a mother and father taking their newborn baby home and living a life of harmony and happiness is common a misconception.

When little Evan Illuminati was just a few months old, his mother returned to work, and his father Chris Illuminati began working from home. It was not long after this arrangement began that Chris became troubled. He began to feel depressed and was often sleep deprived.

He felt trapped and started to feel resentment towards his own baby son, who slept fitfully and disrupted his father's life.
Illuminati only realized what was happening by chance when accompanying his wife on a visit to the doctor's surgery.

"They would hand out these pamphlets about postpartum depression and she would fill it out and be completely fine, whereas I would look at it and go ah, yes a little bit, ah, yes a little bit. So, I was filling it out for myself and realized that some of these things being mentioned were happening to me."

A study published in the medical journal Pediatrics earlier this year analyzed the data of over 17-hundred fathers from 16 large U.S. Cities.

The men were questioned about depression symptoms, spanking and interactions with their one year old children.
The research concluded that seven percent of fathers had recently experienced major symptoms of depression. Though some of the respondents had previous histories of depression, in others the condition was tied to their child's birth.

"Did I feel aggression, and did I try to release it? Yes, of course. But what I would do is just put him in his crib and kind of walk away and go punch a pillow, or just go into another room and just scream or raise my voice to myself."

Dr. Carmine Pariante is leading the research on perinatal psychiatry at the UK's Institute of Psychiatry. He confirms that it isn't uncommon for men to suffer from depression either during, or after their partner's pregnancy.

"Fathers do experience depression during the pregnancy and during the post-natal period, in particular between the three and six months after the baby is born. Up to perhaps a quarter of all fathers experience symptoms of depression."

Although men aren't physically attached to the child in the same way as the mother, Pariante says many of their experiences are similar.

"They have a pervasive feeling of sadness, sometimes even just the crying that goes with it, problems with sleep, difficulty with appetite, the lack of enjoyment of things you would normally enjoy. These are quite common and may be present in both fathers and mothers in the same way."

The UK's Institute of psychiatry has been directly involved in research which reveals that feelings of anxiety during pregnancy can affect babies, and as a result have started to run schemes in order to identify antenatal depression, in mothers and fathers, as soon as possible.

Doctors say identifying signs of depression in fathers at the earliest possible stage will also benefit mothers, in terms of their state of mind and to provide both parents with the support they need to produce a positive future for their children.

For CRI, I'm Zhao Kun.