The majority of persons see postpartum depression as an illness affecting just the new mother. Unfortunately, this is not true. The whole family encounters relationship issues that affect family interactions considerably. Depressed moms who fail to get help frequently place their babies in danger of experiencing serious or fatal setbacks in growth and development.

The medical term for this complicated condition is nonorganic failure to thrive. Nonorganic indicates that no physical cause for the baby's delays exists. As a result of the mom's postpartum depression, she frequently fails to care for the infant's nutritional and emotional requirements. Even though the infant may cry in hunger at the beginning, he or she usually loses interest and quits relating to other people. This condition may cause nutritional problems, starvation, and even death.

Doctors use growth charts to track a baby's physical growth in height, weight, and head size. If the baby is healthy at birth, his or her size will be inside the normal range on the growth charts. If the infant starts to experience serious growth delays, the problem will appear when tracking his or her development against normal ranges. If an infant's growth is lower than the fifth percentile, doctors become seriously concerned.

Other signs may become evident before an infant's growth delays reach this crisis stage. The majority of babies who grow normally are curious about their surroundings. In contrast, babies who fail to thrive show little or no interest in their environment. These infants rarely make sounds or talk; they have quit attempting to relate with their caregivers.

How much of a problem is failure to thrive? If not treated properly, the baby may starve, and even die. Although the infant may get just enough nutrition to stay alive, his or her muscles, lungs, and brain cannot develop properly. Furthermore, even if they are treated, these babies never "catch up" completely. They frequently develop relationship problems or eating conditions, even when they finally start getting their needs met.

Infants diagnosed with failure to thrive typically become critically sick from starvation. They usually are hospitalized for several weeks at a time. Sometimes, they get so weak that feeding from a bottle is too tiring. They receive feedings through a tube inserted in their stomachs, or even in their veins to receive food!

The most tragic aspect of failure to thrive is that it is so preventable. If moms who have postpartum depression identify this depression at its onset, they are able to seek help and never have to subject their fragile babies to these horrific complications. In fact, studies have demonstrated that ninety percent of the women who suffer from depression who get help will experience significant improvement!

A number of approaches are used to treat postpartum depression. Many doctors use medications, such as antidepressants. These drugs are expensive. Nursing mothers should also avoid them. Moreover, these drugs sometimes cause suicidal thoughts; these medications must be used with great care.

Usually, doctors recommend counseling instead of or along with medications. Counseling, however, can be expensive. In addition, it can be time-consuming, and many weeks may pass before this treatment begins to help. Unfortunately, if the woman's depression is severe, this may be too long for her baby. If the baby starts showing growth delays, extra therapies may be required.

Fortunately, other non-medicinal treatment approaches are available. Two revolutionary, beneficial approaches that typically yield results much more quickly than counseling, and are much less dangerous than drugs, are Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP and hypnotherapy for depression. These two approaches usually start to work after even a single session. Moreover, they cost much less than alternative approaches.

Moms who think they might have postpartum depression must get help immediately so that their babies are not at risk for dangerous growth problems. The seriousness of the consequences for the infant demands that the treatment work quickly, and be very effective. NLP and hypnotherapy for depression are inexpensive, begin to work almost immediately, and are highly effective. Therefore, both of these treatments are perfect for helping women with postpartum depression.

Summary: Postpartum depression is depression that begins after childbirth. New moms are not able to provide their infants the caring they need to survive and thrive. This causes failure to thrive, a serious, potentially deadly condition, affecting the baby. Women who suspect that they have postpartum depression need to get help as soon as possible. Hypnosis and NLP for depression are inexpensive and are extremely effective.

Alan B. Densky, CH specializes in depression and stress related symptoms as an NGH certified hypnotist. During his 31-year career he's helped thousands of clients. He offers hypnosis depression therapy CDs. Visit his Neuro-VISION NLP site for the hypnosis article library, or watch his free videos on hypnosis.