What is the difference between baby blues and postpartum depression?

You have so many hormones in pregnancy that affect the emotional centers of your brain. It's very common to get feelings of depression, inadequacy, crying frequently, a lot of symptoms of depression. So the question is: Is it postpartum depression or not?

For me, there are two things. There's what we call baby blues. When a mom gets home with her baby and the baby's up every three hours wanting to feed, moms don't get a lot of sleep, they have the progesterone hormones still there, and so they have a lot of emotions. They cry easily and are frustrated easily. That usually will only last about six weeks as the baby starts to get into routines and moms start to get some sleep.

If moms have any of those thoughts or feelings of not wanting to do anything, crying frequently, especially if they want to hurt themselves, or the baby, it may be tipping over into actual depression that needs to be evaluated by their provider. But feelings of fatigue, crying, a lot of emotions, ups and downs, those can be very common.

So if you're frustrated about the dishes not being done, the vacuuming not being done, the beds not being made, and you're getting overwhelmed by that, it leads a lot to the feelings of depression. But if you're not getting out of bed, you're not taking care of the baby, you want to hurt the baby, you want to hurt yourself, you're not functioning, then you're probably tipping over into depression and it needs to be treated.