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Is it abnormal for the mother of an 8-week-old baby to worry that she might somehow harm her child? How commonly does pregnancy and childbirth lead to obsessive-compulsive thoughts that reach diagnostic threshold? This is important because harming obsessions are common, yet may be mistaken for postpartum psychosis and a risk for infant safety leading to a consideration of removing the child from his mother’s care. Yes, that has happened.
Hi! Jim Phelps here for the Psychopharmacology Institute. Here’s a recent study that reexamines the prevalence of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in the weeks before and after childbirth in the same women. We get to see how the experience of late pregnancy and then giving birth affects anxious worrying.
There are 2 important findings. First, there’s a very clear increase in obsessive thoughts peaking about 8 weeks after delivery, and then decreasing around 15 weeks, but not back to pre-partum levels.
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