Maternity blues
Maternity blues, also known as baby blues and postpartum blues, is a transient condition that 75-80% of mothers could experience shortly after childbirth with a wide variety of symptoms which generally involve mood lability, tearfulness, and some mild anxiety and depressive symptoms. Baby blues is not postpartum depression, unless it is abnormally severe.After the placenta is delivered, the placental "hormone factory" shuts down causing radical changes in hormone levels, and the woman can suffer symptoms due to withdrawal from the high pregnancy levels of estrogen, progesterone and endorphins. Combined with this shift in hormone levels is the physical, mental and emotional exhaustion - as well as sleep deprivation typical of parenting a newborn. All of these factors contribute to the condition.
Postpartum psychosis
Postpartum psychosis is a rare psychiatric emergency in which symptoms of high mood and racing thoughts (mania), depression, severe confusion, loss of inhibition, paranoia, hallucinations and delusions set in, beginning suddenly in the first two weeks after childbirth. The symptoms vary and can change quickly. The most severe symptoms last from 2 to 12 weeks, and recovery takes 6 months to a year.
About half of women who experience it have no risk factors; but women with a prior history of mental illness, especially bipolar disorder, a history of prior episodes of postpartum psychosis, or a family history are at a higher risk. It is not a formal diagnosis, but is widely used to describe a condition that appears to occur in about 1 in a 1000 pregnancies. It is different from postpartum depression and from maternity blues. It may be a form of bipolar disorder.
Diagnosis of postpartum psychosis always requires hospitalization, where treatment is antipsychotic medication, mood stabilizers, and, in cases of strong risk for suicide, electroconvulsive therapy. Women who have been hospitalized for a psychiatric condition immediately after delivery are at a much higher risk of suicide during the first year after delivery.