New Moms: Overwhelmed by Fatigue or Emotion?—Get Your Thyroid Checked
New mothers struggling with roller coaster emotions or unrelenting sadness, waves of incapacitating fatigue or anxiety, take notice. Your symptoms may not simply be due to lack of sleep or the many stresses and new challenges of motherhood. An imbalance in your thyroid could be the culprit, a not so rare condition called postpartum thyroiditis.
“Until the last two decades, there has been little information available about postpartum thyroiditis. However, recent research has demonstrated the need to recognize and, if necessary to treat women suffering from this disorder,” according Thyroid Australia Ltd, a website dedicated to providing support to patients with thyroid conditions.
Postpartum thyroiditis is a non-painful inflammation of the thyroid gland that occurs in up to 15% of women four to six months after delivery of their baby. The cause is unknown, but it is linked to a misguided immune response triggered during pregnancy that attacks the cells of the mother’s thyroid.
The inflamed thyroid first responds by over compensating, leading to excess production of thyroid hormones in the blood (hyperthyroidism).
