Post-partum depression.

It's not all that difficult really.

So there was this question on a mailing list for herbalists: "What herbal tea do you give for post partum depression?"

Here's what I replied. It's asked often enough, so here it is for everybody and their aunt, too:

OK, so first, the irritation, frustration and depression of pregnancy is almost always simply a mineral deficiency. Your kid skims the top of all your minerals and vitamins, you do not have enough of those to make dopamine, serotonin and so on for yourself.

Ergo, you can't see the point with living life, you smile on the outside and are gray gray gray on the inside, you might even think that the world would be better off without you (it won't, honest! There are suicide hotlines, call them if you feel that way!)

Do:

• the milk'o-magnesium+vinegar mix (1 tablespoon milk of magnesia, 4 tablespoons cider vinegar, mix, let clear, add 1 tablespoon of that to a bottle of water, drink that during the day)
• the B vitamins, ie. a good blend with at least 50 mg of B2, B5 and B6 (plus the rest at whatever levels are in there)
• vitamin C (over here I tell pregnant ladies to do local berries, 100-200 g a day)
• vitamin D (personally, I take 5000-10000 IU (125-250 ug) a day. YMMV.)
• iron (nettle tea, floradix, or similar)
• zinc (15 mg a day, or a handful of sesame seed, sunflower seed or almond a day)
• chromium (eat liver, preferably organically produced, or do 200 ug of chromium a day)
• fish oil (1-2 tablespoons a day, or eat wild fatty fish 2-3 times a week)
• vitamin E (found in most cold-pressed oils)
• a general multivitamin, to get all the various co-factors
• calcium ... if you don't add 500 mg of calcium daily you might lose one tooth per pregnancy.

Then, the kid is born, you're recovering after something akin to a train running over you, and your life isn't at all like the pink-clouded flowery picture painted by ladies' magazines.

It helps to tell everybody who wants to ooh and aah over the little one to bring their own pastries, and that you want this kind today. And oh yes, they'll be making the tea and coffee, too.

It helps to continue with the pregnancy vitamins and minerals. In fact, you have to continue with the pregnancy vitamins and minerals: the kid is still skimming what he/she needs off the top, in your milk.

It helps to lower expectations: you don't have to do anything at all about dust bunnies in the corner, they're not dangerous and won't breed all that explosively.

It helps to take motherwort (lets you relax about things), avena (ditto), and potentilla (you couldn't care less about the expectations of others).

But my take on post-partum depression? High expectations of life after giving birth, plus a mineral and vitamin deficiency. Keep the vitamins up for at least as long as you're sleep-deprived, stressed, and/or breastfeed.

Really.

And of course, things are far worse if you're on your second child, and haven't been doing any vitamins or minerals at all.

There's research pointing to the fact that keeping up minerals and vitamins reduce harelip and related birth defects by up to 80 %. (Harelip and the like is more often seen in the second child, precisely because mom is already depleted). Other birth defects are reduced by 60 %. If you're fertile with one child, do the minerals and vitamins. You might get preggers again ... and spina bifida etc. is best averted in the first few weeks of pregnancy.