The majority of people perceive postpartum depression as an illness that affects only the new mother. Unfortunately, this is not true. The entire family experiences relationship changes that alter family dynamics considerably. Depressed mothers who do not seek treatment frequently place their infants in danger of experiencing serious or fatal delays in growth and development.

The psychiatric name for this complex condition is nonorganic failure to thrive. Nonorganic indicates that there is no medical cause for the infant's delays. Because of the mom's postpartum depression, she frequently fails to care for the infant's physical and emotional needs. Even though the infant may cry for food at the beginning, he or she usually loses interest and stops relating to other people. This condition can result in malnutrition, starvation, or even death.

Doctors use growth charts to track a baby's physical growth in height, weight, and head size. If the baby is in good health from birth, his or her size will be within the normal values on these charts. If the infant starts to experience serious growth delays, the problem will appear when comparing his or her progress against normal ranges. Once an infant's progress is lower than the fifth percentile, doctors get worried.

Other symptoms may become evident before an infant's growth problems reach this crisis stage. The majority of infants who grow at a normal rate are interested in their environment. In contrast, infants who do not thrive have little or no curiosity about their surroundings. These infants rarely make noise or words; they have quit attempting to respond to their caretakers.

How serious is failure to thrive? If untreated, a child can starve to death. Even if the baby grows enough to remain alive, his or her heart, lungs, and brain do grow properly. Additionally, even if they are treated, these babies do not "catch up" entirely. They frequently develop social problems or eating conditions, even when they finally start getting their needs met.

Babies who failure to thrive often become critically sick from malnutrition. They usually are in the hospital for weeks or months. In some cases, they get so weak that feeding from a bottle is too tiring. They get feedings via a tube placed in the stomach, or even in their veins to get nutrition!

The most tragic aspect of failure to thrive is that it can be easily prevented. If mothers with postpartum depression identify this problem when it begins, they can get help and do not have to subject their helpless infants to these horrific dangers. Indeed, studies have demonstrated that ninety percent of the women who suffer from depression and get treatment will find healing!

A number of approaches are useful in treating postpartum depression. Many doctors prescribe medications like antidepressants. These medications are expensive. Nursing mothers should also avoid them. Furthermore, these drugs sometimes cause thoughts of suicide; these medications should be prescribed with extreme caution.

Frequently, doctors recommend psychotherapy instead of or along with medications. Counseling, however, is costly. Additionally, it often requires a lot of extra time, and many weeks may go by before this therapy begins to help. Regrettably, depending on the severity of the woman's depression, this may be too long for her baby. If the child starts showing delayed growth, additional treatment may be needed.

Luckily, other non-medicinal treatment approaches are available. Two revolutionary, beneficial approaches that typically offer results much faster than psychotherapy, and are not nearly as dangerous as medicine, are Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP and hypnosis for depression. NLP and hypnosis typically begin to work after even a single session. Moreover, they are much less expensive than other approaches.

Mothers who suspect they have postpartum depression must get treatment immediately so that their infants are not at risk for dangerous growth delays. The seriousness of the effects on the infant mandates that the treatment work quickly, and have a high rate of effectiveness. NLP and hypnotherapy for depression cost little, begin to work almost immediately, and are highly effective. This makes these two treatments perfect for treating postpartum depression.

Summary: Postpartum depression is depression that begins after childbirth. These new mothers are not able to provide their infants the caring they need to live and grow. This causes failure to thrive, a serious, potentially deadly condition, which hurts the baby. Mothers who think they have postpartum depression need to get treatment as soon as possible. Hypnosis and NLP for depression cost little and are extremely effective.

Alan B. Densky, CH specializes in stress and depression related symptoms as a certified hypnotist and NLP Practitioner. He has helped thousands of clients since 1978. He supplies hypnosis depression therapy CDs. Visit his Neuro-VISION hypnotherapy site for the hypnosis article repository, or watch his free video hypnosis collection.