Does common mean normal? If 50-80% of women experience transient mood lability, weepiness and irritability in the early postpartum, can we call it illness? Baby blues has dropped off the radar a little in recent years, yet in the past ‘this trivial disorder has aroused almost as much curiosity as puerperal psychosis’ (Brockington). Research has brought hints but no clarity to associations with predictable hormonal or neurochemical changes, but a stubborn link to postpartum depression remains. Will interest wane further, or can preoccupation with the ‘pinks’, brief postpartum mood elevation, bring a new hue to the spectrum of peripartum disorders?
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