Challenges in Identifying and Diagnosing Post-partum Disorders

In spite of greater awareness that childbirth can be accompanied by severe emotional disorders, problems with timely identification of perinatal mental illness persist. Controversy as to whether puerperal illnesses are discrete nosological entities or instead episodes of mood, anxiety, or psychotic disorders that occur coincidentally in the puerperium or are precipitated by it, has endured for over 30 years. Recent research suggests that …