Pregnancy and Post-Pregnancy

Breastfeeding a baby can be a satisfying experience, healthy for both baby and Mom. But the joy of this experience can be quickly thwarted by mastitis, a relatively common, painful and debilitating acute infection of the breast that affects between 10 and 30% of breastfeeding women. With the right care mastitis can often resolve on its own, but if neglected it can lead to a more serious infection. It can also cause women to prematurely stop breastfeeding because of the pain and discomfort.

Morning sickness is extremely common, affecting 70% of pregnant women. The most severe form, called “hyperemesis gravidarum” can require hospitalization and is more rare, affecting somewhere between 0.3 to 10.8% of women who are pregnant. While referred to as nausea and vomiting of pregnancy (NVP) in the medical community, it is typically called “morning sickness”, which is actually a misnomer: only 1.8% of women experience nausea or vomiting only in the morning, 80% report that they have it all day long.

Most women experience mood changes after giving birth, sometimes called “postpartum blues”. Understandable, since rapid hormonal shifts take place, and having a baby is a dramatic life change. For the vast majority of women, these mood changes are short-lived and mild. However, 10-15% suffer a more serious form of depression; and a very small proportion--around 0.2%-- experience psychotic symptoms following childbirth.