This is great, we should also add doing a mental health history to identify risk for perinatal depression/anxiety (impacting up to 20% of women) or psychosis (which is rare and impacts less than .5% but can be scary and dangerous for mom/baby). This could include assessment of her own prior depression and asking other females in her family, including mom and sisters if they experienced symtpoms as well as doing a bi-polar self test such as this one http://psychcentral.com/quizzes/bipolarquiz.htm. Women with bi-polar disorder have a greater risk of exepriencing a psychosis. Most women are never informed of the fact 20% of women suffer from these disorders, that triggers can be managed to some degree and preventive steps taken (sleep deprivation prevention, excercise and use of omega-3s, and more).
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This is great, we should also add doing a mental health history to identify risk for perinatal depression/anxiety (impacting up to 20% of women) or psychosis (which is rare and impacts less than .5% but can be scary and dangerous for mom/baby). This could include assessment of her own prior depression and asking other females in her family, including mom and sisters if they experienced symtpoms as well as doing a bi-polar self test such as this one http://psychcentral.com/quizzes/bipolarquiz.htm. Women with bi-polar disorder have a greater risk of exepriencing a psychosis. Most women are never informed of the fact 20% of women suffer from these disorders, that triggers can be managed to some degree and preventive steps taken (sleep deprivation prevention, excercise and use of omega-3s, and more).
August 11, 2014 - 12:58pmThis Comment
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