Postnatal depression

Depression is an illness that can affect women and birthing people at any time in pregnancy or the postnatal period or both. Research suggest around 1 in 10 women having a baby would be affected.

Symptoms can include low mood, feeling unhappy, low energy, loss of interest or enjoyment and lots of other possible bodily and emotional changes.

View information on some of the possible symptoms and making sense of postnatal depression.

Sometimes people will know why they are depressed and sometimes there is not a obvious reason and could be many things. People may feel distressed, guilty or shameful for feeling they way they do. However, depression can happen to anyone and there is lots of support and treatments available to help people and families get better.

People can become depressed throughout the perinatal period (in pregnancy and/or postnatal period after you gave given birth to a baby). The reasons for this are varied and different for everyone. Becoming a parent for the first or subsequent times can mean big changes for you and your family and/or significant others and comes with lots of new and different challenges to navigate.

It is never too late for people to seek help for depression in the perinatal period. Even if someone has been depressed through pregnancy or a while, they can get better and there is lots of services and support available to help.

Mild symptoms of depression can be helped by increased support. And for people who are more unwell there are many support and service options. It may be helpful to firstly speak to a GP, Health visitor, midwife or community service professional about referral options.

See Cheshire and Mersey Perinatal Service information webpage for more details.