Just curious. Does depression and schizophrenia go away or lessen considerably when a women is pregnant due to the brain chemistry changes that happen?
I believe not. Here’s a snippet of an interview which suggests that the crazy and pregnant remain just as crazy as they did before they got pregnant:
Also, I talked to a psychologist I know after the whole “woman who ate her baby” thing, and she suggested that the crazy tends to get worse.
It could get worse due to ceasing medication. Postpartum depression is also a risk.
If the stories Cyn tells are any indication, that would be a big affirmative.
Crazy people get pregnant all the time…still crazy later.
Paging Cyn!!!
Isn’t there something called post-partum psychosis, which was the case with Andrea Yates?
Yes, there is a specifier in many of the Axis I disorders of “with post-partum onset.” It’s not just limited to psychotic disorders. And it’s my understanding that Andrea Yates did have a well-established history of post-partum psychotic symptoms with all of her pregnancies, although I could be misremembering.
Here’s some recent research that seems to show schizophrenia is due to developmental problems in the brain resulting in wrong number and wrong types of neurons in some areas. (which seems like brain chemistry changes would be less likely to fix the problem).
In my experience (20+ years in general psychiatry), no. I have heard anecdotal reports of women who did get better, but I’ve never treated, or consulted on, one of them.
Looks like that’s pretty much others’ experience also:
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/54021?verify=0
Ragiel, M.D., Shrink.
Changes in brain chemistry don’t automatically mean changes for the better.
I was depressed and untreated before I got pregnant. While pregnant, I got worse, not better, and of course I stayed untreated. I didn’t get treated until my daughter was a little over a year old, and as long as I take my meds, life is mostly bearable, both for me and for those around me.
Based on one anecodotal account, I think it must be possible, and I’ve wished someone would study it. I’ve always wondered if it is a contributing factor in some situations where a (usually poor, uneducated) woman has kid after kid when she is not in a stable situation and has no money, etc. My mom’s somewhat severe depression (no schizophrenia) went magically away when she was pregnant with my oldest brother. I think that is one of the reasons that she talks about pregnancy with reverential awe…I mean, with a little more awe or fervor or reverance than most people do. Anyway, she later got medication and all was well, but she recalls that she went from being in a dark hole to being blissfully happy all day every day while pregnant…and falling into the hole again after giving birth.
Woman who ate her baby? Did that really happen? Can you link something to that?
Well, she ate part of the brain and a few toes.
Oh
my
God.
That’s awful.
Depression can certainly improve during pregnancy- pregnancy hormones tend to exert a “feel good” effect that can help…but the post-partum hormone crash would negate this effect, and it certainly isn’t true for everyone.
Pregnancy itself can cause depression in some people, and is a well known issue for women with unwanted pregnancies, or who suffer the more unpleasant pregnancy symptoms (i.e. it’s hard to feel happy when you’re on a drip and haven’t been able to keep down solids for several weeks).
Schizohrenia is a spectrum of illness.
There are some people who have a single episode of psychosis and never become unwell again.
There are others who have multiple episodes of psychosis, but stay well inbetween.
There are still others who have multiple episodes of psychosis and who gradually deteriorate in social skills and function in between, never truly being “well” again.
Finally there are some people who sadly have some level of psychosis always present, and whose day to day function is usually impaired by that.
Now, it would be unlikely that someone from the last category would be magically “cured” of their schizophrenia by pregnancy, but it might be possibly that a person from the first category could appear to have been. Does that make sense?
When you talk of schizophrenia you also need to understand the difference between “positive” symptoms (delusions and hallucinations- the “Hollywood” symptoms of schizophrenia) and “negative” symptoms (self-isolation, lack of motivation, decreased ability to interact successfully with others, poor personal care).
It may be possible that someone with predominantly negative symptoms of schizophrenia may be able to respond posivitely to the pregnancy enough to motivate themselves and thus engage better with others, but it is unlikley that this would be a factor in someone who was mainly dealing with positive symptoms.
So…possible yes, likely or common, no.