"Postpartum psychosis often strikes women with no history of mental illness, who in the weeks after giving birth are seized by paranoia or delusions. Emily Sliwinski got home from the hospital after giving birth to her first child three years ago, and almost immediately began spiraling. Her thoughts raced; she was unable to sleep; she began hallucinating that her dog was speaking to her. She became obsessed with solving the national shortage of infant formula, covering a corkboard with notes and ideas."
"She spent 11 days in the psychiatric hospital, but it didn't help. "Every day I was trying to figure out where I was and what was happening," Sliwinski, 33, recalled. Doctors there did not connect her symptoms to childbirth, she said, and diagnosed her with schizophrenia. It was only when her family got her transferred to a specialized perinatal psychiatric unit at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that doctors zeroed in on the right diagnosis: postpartum psychosis."
Postpartum psychosis can emerge suddenly in the weeks after childbirth, often affecting women with no prior psychiatric history and producing paranoia, delusions and hallucinations. Symptoms may include racing thoughts, severe insomnia, obsessional behaviors and auditory hallucinations. Misdiagnosis as schizophrenia or other disorders is common when clinicians do not consider a perinatal connection. Delayed or incorrect diagnosis can lead to prolonged ineffective inpatient stays and increased distress for patients and families. Specialized perinatal psychiatric units can identify postpartum psychosis and provide appropriate treatment. A group of women's health specialists has sought formal recognition of postpartum psychosis as a distinct DSM diagnosis for more than five years. Two DSM committees remain split over whether to add it.
Read at Boston.com
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