PPD
Also called postpartum depression, post partum depression, PPD/PPA, PND, postnatal depression
PPD stands for postpartum depression, a depression that comes after having a baby. Parents, doctors and health sites all use the short form.
How it's said
I had never heard of PPA before, only PPD...
Does PPD have to only concern your relationship with your baby?
Postnatal depression or PND (sometimes called postpartum depression or PPD) is the most common postnatal mental health disorder...
Who says it
In the UK it's mostly called postnatal depression, or PND, the name the NHS uses.
Not to be confused with
- Baby blues is the name for the down, teary few days many parents have soon after birth. PPD names a depression that lasts longer or starts later.
Where it came from
Writing about mothers' moods after childbirth goes back a long way. Hippocrates wrote about agitation, delirium and mania in women after childbirth around 460 BC, and in the 19th century asylums used the name puerperal insanity.
Postpartum is Latin for after giving birth and entered English in 1844. In 1987, Scottish health centers in Edinburgh and Livingston developed the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, and Cleveland Clinic writes that many healthcare providers use it to screen for postpartum depression.