What can we learn from the story “After The Discharge”?
From the book – Chapter 30: Perinatal Mental Health
After The Discharge
The ward called the birth normal. At home the nights were not. She could not feel the baby as hers. Her mother said tiredness. On day twelve she told the visiting nurse she had thought of walking out of the house. The nurse did not argue about gratitude. She sat, asked about sleep and thoughts of harm, and took them to the clinic that afternoon. Medicine and a short admission were not a verdict on motherhood. They were simply how the illness was treated.
Read the full chapter – Chapter 30: Perinatal Mental Health
Stories from real life
- The Tablet She Wanted to Throw Away – Anjali was twenty-nine and thirty weeks pregnant when she told her husband, Rohit, that she had put her antidepressant tablets in the bin. She had taken…
- Not Just Tired Tears – Zainab brought her daughter home from the hospital in Lahore on a Tuesday. By the fourth day she was crying over nothing: a cold cup of…
- The Birth That Went Well on Paper – Priya's daughter was born by emergency caesarean after a night of frightening alarms. The baby was healthy, the doctors smiled, and relatives sent cheerful photos. Everyone…
- A Quiet Room After the Scan – Sunita was ten weeks pregnant when a routine scan in Pune showed no heartbeat. The doctor spoke kindly, but the words blurred. By evening she was…
More on this topic: Children, teenagers and parents – mental health at home and school
More questions
- What we already know? (Chapter 30)
- Baby blues and depression — keep the difference – explained simply
- Understanding medicines – pregnancy and new parents
- Who else is in the room?
- What is true: postpartum depression is…?
- What is true: baby blues usually…?
- What is true: traumatic childbirth…?
- What is true: psychiatric medicine in pregnancy…?
- What is true: thoughts of harming the infant…?
- The Tablet She Wanted to Throw Away – what this story teaches, the signs and what to do
- Baby blues or postpartum depression?