Your Stories

Ever since our son was born 3 yrs ago my partner has totaly shut me out.

please please please help me in this anybody out-there with any ideas. Thanks

John

You can get support from PNI-Org, read about them here Depression

This is one Dad's story of his experience of postnatal depression.

"The birth of my daughter was traumatic, and without going into the details that my wife finds too personal, I walked out of the hospital after the 26 hours of labour that was cut short by an emergency c-section, feeling traumatised.

I'm still trying to find out what exactly made me feel that way. I think most of it comes from the feeling that she was violated or raped or something and that I was just having to stand by trying to help my wife relax so it was less painful, almost as though I was helping them.

At the birth my feelings went along the lines of expecting to cry with joy at the birth, to relief and joy with tears, to sheer and utter relief, ending in total numbness and, 'oh she's out.'

Since the birth, my wife has now gone on to develop Post Natal Depression, I had exams four weeks after the birth, and ended up being off work with a severe ear infection, a few weeks later, since when I've been tired most of the time. Now my wife is getting better, I've started finding time to look after myself, and I've started seeing symptoms that are similar to that of my wife's PND or more probably more realistically Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I've not slept properly for the last couple of nights, which isn't helped by the three hours I did get my head down, being woken up 3 times or so by my daughter screaming her head off, probably due to teething.

Sometimes I feel detached from my daughter, and I've even had thoughts of harm to her or myself. Often dreams can also become more vivid. Only I can feel what I feel and if I truely share what it is that I felt, my wife finds it too personal for other people to know, so I can only talk to her. I don't want her thinking that she made me ill, so paradoxically I don't want to tell her everything.

It is very difficult for the husbands and partners who have gone through a traumatic birth with the mother, as the mother is the one who is important, and often the father or partner has to hide how bad he or she (I'm sure it must affect female birth partners as well), has been affected to allow support of the mother. They often become left out and put to one side, where it is well documented that the fathers can fall foul of PND and PTSD, men are also affected by hormonal changes through their wife's pregnancy. The need for support for fathers is often overlooked, as it is hard for people outside the new family to pick up on such an illness in the mother, let alone the father.

My wife's health visitor didn't pick up on my wife's PND, and she would never pick up on it if I had it, I now spend my day at work and since it's been a delayed reaction, I'll never be in a position to see her.

What's needed now is for someone to ask me how I REALLY am, and luckily I have friends who will as least let me talk over certain things. One friend recently became a father himself and has been to the Dr's thinking he was depressed, and though I think he felt depressed to some extent, he wasn't diagnosed as clinically depressed.

One of my other friends is Debbie. Debbie was ill postnatally and is busy setting up a charity, PostNatal illness - Support & Help Association, and has been an excellent source of help for my wife and me. She is based in Ashbourne in Derbyshire, and she runs a helpline, and even if she can't immediately answer, will reply to all messages left. I've got a long way to go but I realise help is needed, for partners and fathers out there, and I would like to find out how great the need is and what support can be offered.

As such, through PNi-UK, I'd like to do a little research, and have set up an anonymous email, helpfordads@hotmail.com, and would like to open it up for suggestions, stories etc. from fathers and indeed any birth partner who feels they've been affected, in any adverse way by the birth.

I'm not initially intending on running the email as a help line, but if necessary I can do that, though I work full time, so I may not be able to reply quickly but it is often helpful just to write things down.

If you do need to talk to someone, please do. Please also feel free to contact Debbie on 01335 347599, she's a great help and very good at listening."

God Bless

William