A mother's inability to breastfeed can cause depression, and having a second child can only aggravate symptoms, psychiatrist and psychiatrist Alexei Melekhin told VZGLYAD newspaper.
On the morning of November 11, a Muscovite Lyudmila Sokolova tried to commit suicide with her 3-year-old son and 9-month-old daughter. Lyudmila and her daughter died, and the boy was hospitalized in serious condition. It was reported that the girl refused to breastfeed, and therefore her mother called an ambulance several times.
“Factors of postpartum depression: encountering any difficulties, when the mother convinces herself that she is bad, incapable, something does not work out for her. For example, she cannot breastfeed, she has some kind of rejection, anxiety, pain - all this further increases the degree of anxiety and creates a feeling of hopelessness. Accordingly, the combination of anxiety and helplessness often leads to self-harm or suicide,”says Melekhin.
According to the psychiatrist, one of the causes of depression is the inability to breastfeed the baby, if the mother experienced pleasure during this process. The process of feeding itself has an antidepressant effect if the mother does not have any mental disorders.
“Almost every second woman under the age of 35, for various reasons, faced postpartum depression, and the birth of a second child can often be a manifestation - an aggravation of symptoms, which results in prolonged postpartum depression,” added Melekhin.
The doctor notes that even if mothers decide to commit suicide, the children are usually not touched. According to him, the situation when a mother deliberately harms herself and the child suggests that a woman suffers from psychosis, in which she psychologically destroys not only herself as a mother, but also her children.
