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Everyone experiences moments of sadness. In most cases, these feelings persist for only hours or days. Up to twenty percent of the people in the world, however, are diagnosed with major depression, in which these moods last several days, weeks, or months. These emotions cause the person to develop impaired functioning in career, family, or social relationships, which can become severe.

Women who have signs of depression when they become pregnant may be diagnosed with perinatal depression. This illness may develop at any point after pregnancy begins, or any time thereafter, until the infant is one year old. Usually, however, women who encounter this illness after the child is born are diagnosed with postpartum depression.

Perinatal depression or postpartum depression results from a number of causes. These causes can be physiological. For instance, women with a previous or family history of clinical depression or other mental health problems are more likely to experience perinatal depression or postpartum depression. Furthermore, hormonal changes in postpartum mothers, like decreases in estrogen and progesterone amounts, can result in depression. After childbirth, thyroid malfunctions may lead to symptoms of depression such as tiredness, negative moods, and despair.

Sometimes, mental depression is a result of psychological issues. Women may feel tired and overwhelmed in learning to juggle the demands made by the new family member. Such feelings are often increased by the absence of assistance from family, friends, or significant other. Financial issues may also contribute to the development of postpartum depression.

Perinatal depression and postpartum depression may have serious results for both the mother and her new child. Anxiety and depression may hinder a mother from bonding fully with her baby or being able to meet her infant's physiological and emotional needs. This may increase the mother's feelings of worthlessness, guilt, and low self-worth.

The baby is also harmed by the woman's problems. Failure to bond with his or her mother may result in the infant to experience trust issues in personal attachments throughout life. In addition, babies who do not get their physiological or emotional needs met typically fail to grow and develop normally. This problem, called "failure to thrive," may be quite harmful or even deadly to the baby.

Perinatal depression or postpartum depression can harm the entire family. The spouse or partner sometimes feels ignored or unable to decrease these depression symptoms. This can severely wound their partnership. Other children in the family may experience similar feelings, and have academic or peer problems as well.

Depression affects the whole family. For this reason, women who develop perinatal depression or postpartum depression should seek depression treatment as soon as possible. Numerous treatments can be used, including counseling and medication treatments. Medications, however, are sometimes dangerous for nursing infants, and sometimes yield unpredictable outcomes because of the great hormone fluctuations a mother experiences during these hectic times. Moreover, traditional counseling approaches can be time-consuming and expensive.

Two approaches for dealing with depression that do not require medicines and may quickly demonstrate incredibly beneficial outcomes are hypnotherapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. Traditional Hypnotherapy is most effective for individuals who are effortlessly hypnotized or can accept suggestions without feeling a need to critique or understand them. Ericksonian hypnosis is quite effective for those who often overanalyze. These techniques assist people to unwind and eliminate tension.

For persons who are more critical or analytical individuals, NLP is usually more beneficial. Through this technique, trained professionals offer clients depression help by assisting them to restructure their thought processes. This method can, very literally, assist a client think beyond the depressive mood and conquer it.

People can conquer depression by mastering NLP strategies like anchoring. They learn to focus on times when they felt happy and in control of their situations. Remembering the memory revives these feelings. People are instructed to put two fingers together and remember these emotions. The subconscious mind associates the touch of the two fingers with the feelings. Therefore, the finger touch becomes an "anchor."

Then, if the person starts to become overwhelmed, he or she activates the anchor by putting these same two fingers together again. This brings back feelings of self-control and creates empowerment.

By using another method called the Flash, people discover how to think away harmful emotions. They teach their subconscious minds to automatically substitute positive thoughts for negative ones. As negative thoughts develop, the brain automatically substitutes them for positive responses. After developing this technique, people find it nearly impossible to conjure up negative thoughts!

Summary: Perinatal depression and postpartum depression may have harmful results for a mother and her new baby. The remainder of their family may also be profoundly affected by these problems. Due to the possible severity of the results of this disorder, women with depression should seek help as soon as symptoms begin. Two quite beneficial strategies that do not require medicine or great outlays of time and money are hypnotherapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

Alan B. Densky, CH specializes in stress and depression related symptoms as a certified hypnotherapist and NLP Practitioner. He's helped thousands of clients since 1978. He supplies self hypnosis therapy for depression CDs. Visit his Neuro-VISION self hypnosis site for the hypnosis article library, or watch his free video hypnosis collection.