The transition to motherhood involves a deep hormonal transformation throughout the woman’s body, including the brain. Subtle changes in some brain regions during pregnancy can help explain why some women develop postpartum depression.
A new study, Published in Science Advancesfound that those who presented this mental picture had an increase in volume in two areas involved with emotions and stress: tonsils and hippocampus.
These structures are essential for emotional regulation and memory formation, but it has not yet been known whether experiences in childbirth, one of the most intense emotionally in a woman’s life, and the development of postpartum depression would be associated with changes in these brain regions. And this is what researchers linked to different institutions in Spain investigated in the recent study.
Scientists used magnetic resonance imaging to evaluate brain regions of 88 women who were first pregnant and had no history of depression or other mental health disorders. They especially sought volume changes in the hippocampus and tonsils. They also answered a questionnaire about their childbirth experience. In the control group, 30 women who never had children were monitored.
The researchers point out that the psychological state of the mother shapes childbirth in a deeply subjective experience. While some women perceive their delivery as a positive experience, feeling intense joy, pride and fulfillment, others describe it as traumatic. Therefore, a distressing and complicated birth can lead to symptoms of posttraumatic stress or postpartum depression.
Women who had bad experiences during delivery presented bilateral increase in the hippocampus. And those that expressed symptoms of depression during periparto (which includes the final period of pregnancy and the following months after giving birth) were the right cerebral amygdala.
According to the study, the greater the growth in the volume of the right amygdala, the greater the increase in symptoms of perinatal depression; And the worse the experience of delivery, the greater the bilateral increase in volume in the hippocampus.
“This finding is very important,” says gynecologist and obstetrician Rômulo Negrini, maternal-child medical coordinator of the Israelita Albert Einstein Hospital. “The authors emphasize the correlation of right tonsil with postpartum depression because depression is a condition that requires treatment. The issue of childbirth experience is very individual and deserves psychological attention. But depression can be something more serious and permanent.”
A common problem
According to Spanish survey, between 7% and 44% of mothers describe their childbirth as a traumatic, 10% develop posttraumatic stress disorder related to child birth and 17% suffer from postpartum depression. In Brazil, according to estimates from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), the picture affects about 25% of mothers.
Soon after giving birth, about 80% of women will experience baby blues-a set of feelings that are often confused with postpartum depression: constant crying, sadness, anguish, excessive sensitivity, irritability and anxiety are some of the symptoms. But they are transient, last two to three weeks and usually regress spontaneously. Postpartum depression, on the contrary, does not disappear and can bring other complications and consequences, including the affective aspect, disrupting the bond between mother and baby.
Although the results of Spanish research do not yet bring effective change in clinical practice-after all, you can’t do magnetic resonance imaging in all pregnant women-findings reinforce the importance of monitoring perinatal experiences and pregnant women’s mental health.
“If there is a high risk [de depressão pós-parto]I can take the exam shortly after delivery and detect these brain changes before depression appears, for example, ”proposes Negrini.“ From that, I can take preventive attitudes, such as doing psychotherapy, organizing the lifestyle and maintaining a support network so that this woman does not develop depression. ”
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This content was originally published in brain changes are associated with the highest risk of postpartum depression on CNN Brazil.
Source: CNN Brasil
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