This week on The Show, we’ve been bringing you conversations about the most common complication of childbirth: postpartum depression.
It’s a condition that’s far more common than most of us realize, affecting up to one in five women, and it can be debilitating.
Mesa mother Alex Lyons shared her story on The Show. One of the issues Lyons encountered was the challenge of not only finding help, but getting a diagnosis to begin with. While OB-GYNs are advised to screen for postpartum depression, most women don’t see theirs until six weeks after giving birth.
Pediatricians, on the other hand, are some of the first health care providers to see new mothers after giving birth. Usually just days after a new baby is born, they are brought to the pediatricians’ office for a check-up. Are they eating enough? Are they sleeping?
So pediatricians are now stepping in. For more on this, I sat down with Dr. Jason Vargas, president-elect of the Arizona Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a community pediatrician at Cactus Children’s Clinic in Glendale.
He’s been practicing for nearly 20 years and said as pediatricians go through school and training, learning about postpartum depression is nothing new.
Resources For Postpartum Depression
- Postpartum Support International
- Postpartum Support International - Arizona Chapter
- Tucson Postpartum Depression Coalition
- List Of Providers
