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The majority of persons see postpartum depression as an illness that affects just the new mother. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The entire family encounters relationship issues that affect family dynamics drastically. Depressed mothers who fail to get help often put their babies at risk for serious or fatal delays in growth and development.

The medical term for this complex condition is nonorganic failure to thrive. Nonorganic indicates that there is no medical cause for the infant's delays. Because of the mom's postpartum depression, she often fails to care for the baby's physical and emotional requirements. Although the infant may cry for food at first, he or she often loses interest and quits interacting with other people. This disorder may cause nutritional problems, starvation, or even death.

Doctors use developmental charts to follow a baby's physical growth in height, weight, and head size. If the infant is healthy at birth, his or her size will be inside the normal values on the growth charts. If the infant starts to have serious developmental delays, this will appear when tracking his or her progress with normal ranges. If an infant's growth is lower than the fifth percentile, physicians become seriously concerned.

Other symptoms often appear before an infant's growth problems reach this crisis stage. Most babies who grow at a normal rate are interested in their surroundings. In contrast, babies who fail to thrive have little or no interest in their surroundings. These infants typically do not make noise or talk; they have stopped trying to respond to their caregivers.

How much of a problem is this condition? If not treated properly, a child may starve, and even die. Although the infant may get just enough nutrition to stay alive, his or her muscles, lungs, and mind cannot develop properly. Additionally, even when they do get help, these babies do not "catch up" entirely. They often acquire social problems or eating conditions, even when they finally start getting their needs met.

Infants diagnosed with failure to thrive typically become gravely ill from starvation. They usually are hospitalized for several weeks at a time. In some cases, they get so weak that taking a bottle is exhausting. They get nutrition through a tube placed in the stomach, or even in a vein to get food!

The saddest aspect of this condition is that it is so preventable. If mothers with postpartum depression recognize this problem at its onset, they are able to seek treatment and do not expose their fragile babies to these terrible complications. In fact, research has demonstrated that ninety percent of those mothers who suffer from depression and seek help will find healing!

A number of approaches are useful in treating postpartum depression. Some physicians use medicines like antidepressants. These medications are costly. Nursing mothers should also avoid them. Moreover, these drugs can cause suicidal thoughts; these medicines must be used with extreme caution.

Frequently, physicians recommend counseling instead of or along with medicines. Counseling, however, is costly. Additionally, it often requires a lot of extra time, and many weeks may pass before this treatment begins to help. Regrettably, depending on the severity of the woman's depression, this may be too long for her baby. If the baby starts showing delayed growth, extra treatment may be required.

Luckily, other non-drug treatment options are available. Two revolutionary, effective approaches that typically offer positive outcomes much more quickly than counseling, and are not nearly as dangerous as drugs, are Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP and hypnosis for depression. These two approaches typically start to work after even a single treatment. Moreover, they cost much less than other approaches.

Mothers who suspect they have postpartum depression need to seek help at once so that their babies are not at risk for critical growth problems. The severity of the consequences for the infant demands that any approach work quickly, and be very effective. NLP and hypnotherapy for depression cost little, begin to work almost immediately, and are extremely effective. This makes these two treatments perfect for treating postpartum depression.

Summary: Postpartum depression is depression that occurs after childbirth. New moms cannot give their infants the attention they need to live and thrive. This causes failure to thrive, a serious, possibly fatal disorder, affecting the baby. Mothers who suspect that they have postpartum depression should seek help as soon as possible. Hypnotherapy and NLP for depression cost little and have demonstrated amazing effectiveness.