How to prevent/deal with postnatal depression

For most people, not having enough sleep can make us grumpy, irritable, unable to focus... it just does not feel good when we're tired yet baby still requires ongoing care. So this can lead to a spiral especially when you don't know when is the next chance to catch up on your sleep! To prevent this, work out some sort of a shift system with your partner and whoever is able to chip in for the first few months. So each of you get to sleep properly for at least 4 - 5 hours.

80% of women with PND recover fully with treatment. The remaining 20% might still have ongoing challenges due to long term stressors, or they might have strong family history of mental health conditions. Nevertheless, with continued treatment and support, they can function reasonably well even when not fully recovered. Here's one of the many cases we helped while I was working in KKH previously https://www.todayonline.com/daily-focus/health/some-women-stork-also-delivers-blues

It's hard to say just based on this, cos it also depends on your postnatal situation, how stressful it is and how you are coping. HIgher than someone who did not have depression before, everything else equal. More useful to think about what you have learned from your previous depressive episode, like what triggers your mood changes, what are your signs of depression, what helped you to recover.

yes for mothers mental health, you may consider this group in part of https://www.facebook.com/groups/newmothersmentalhealth/?ref=share&mibextid=NSMWBT

PND can affect the mood, mental focus, decision-making, sleep, appetite, energy, outlook on life. When left untreated, can be detrimental to the mother's self-esteem and overall functioning, may continue to general and chronic depression beyond the postnatal period. Untreated PND tends to affect family relationships too, because our mental and emotional well-being influence the way we interact and respond to people.

Being clear on your values, what really matters. Everything can seem important and we want to do our best in everything, but the reality is our time/energy will be limited. So we have to be clear on what really matters and let go of some expectations, otherwise it's just too much pressure.

Equip yourself with accurate information, learn how to respond to emotions, how to encourage by journeying alongside rather than giving advice and solutions. Attend dr's visits together so you show that you are in this as a team, don't make her feel like she is the one with the problem.

Also, when society talks about "mother's instinct" or other descriptions such as "love at first sight with baby" suggesting mothers should know what to do or there's a right way of how you should be feeling. These can also give unnecessary pressure to new mothers. In reality, a lot of things we do as parents comes from "on the job" learning, taking time to observe and understand each child, what works what doesn't work. Love also comes in many different forms, it's not always felt strongly from the start.

Identify unhelpful thought patterns, practise reframing to more balanced / helpful thoughts. Practise self-compassion, i.e. be kind to yourself. Stay with the present moment, refrain from dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. Well, seems easier said than done. So this is more for prevention or milder forms of depression, but if you are already going through moderate to severe depression it's hard to find the motivation to do this on your own. Get help.

yes it can. When the stress levels are higher than the amount of support + internal resources (how you cope, your beliefs and expectations etc)