Post-Natal Depression

<p><em>Post-Natal Depression</em> challenges the expectation that it is normal to be a 'happy mother'. It provides a radical critique of the traditional medical and social science explanations of 'post natal depression' by supplying a systematic feminist psychological analysis of women's experiences following childbirth. Paula Nicolson argues that, far from it being an abnormal, undesirable, pathological condition, it is a normal, healthy response to a series of losses.<br><em>Post Natal Depression</em> makes an important contribution to the psychology of women and feminist research and will be of interst to psychologists, social scientists, nurses and doctors.</p> Introduction 1 Women’s experience of motherhood 2 Competing explanations of post-natal depression 3 The context of post-natal depression 4 Post-natal care and ‘maternity blues’ 5 Reflexivity, intervention and the construction of post-natal depression 6 Loss, happiness and post-natal depression: the ultimate paradox 7 Knowledge, myth and the meaning of post-natal depression