Kathleen Kendall-Tackett takes a look at how other cultures prevent postpartum depression.
"As citizens of an industrialized nation, we often act as if we have nothing to learn from the Third World. Yet many of these cultures are doing something extraordinarily right—especially in how they care for new mothers. In their classic paper, Stern and Kruckman (1983) present an anthropological critique of the literature. They found that in the cultures they studied, postpartum disorders, including the “baby blues,” were virtually non-existent. In contrast, 50–85 percent of new mothers in industrialized nations experience the “baby blues,” and 15–25 percent (or more) experience postpartum depression."
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