HOMEOPATHY AND POST NATAL DEPRESSION

BEST HOMEOPATHIC REMEDIES FOR HORMONAL BALANCE IN NEW MOTHERS

This article is for educational purposes only; please contact your health care provider if you are experiencing any serious symptoms.

We all know how pregnancy and birth and beyond can affect female hormones and for some women this can be a struggle in terms of mental health.

One common symptom is failure to bond immediately with the new baby, with all the guilt and sadness that can cause. In other women there can be a sense of almost inadequacy: perhaps nursing is challenging or not possible or there is a general sense that we have this new life and we are not equipped to deal with the baby adequately.

There are so many shades of what doctors diagnose as “post partum depression”, from mild to severe; in all cases, it is essential to pay attention and not underestimate or brush off these symptoms lightly. It is important to understand that there is no shame in feeling those feelings and asking for help is not a sign of weakness, on the contrary.

From a homeopathic point of view, there are various remedies that can help with hormonal re-balancing:

Sepia: this is the most common scenario, when the mother does not seem to bond emotionally with the baby and feels guilty at the same time. There is also the fear of being dangerous around the baby, out of exhaustion, the fear of harming the baby by accident.

One interesting remedy is Agnus Castus:

Agnus Castus (Agn., also called Chaste Tree, Chasteberry, or Monk’s Pepper) is a homeopathic remedy prepared from the ripe berries of the plant Vitex agnus-castus (family Lamiaceae, formerly Verbenaceae), a Mediterranean shrub.

In my practice, I have prescribed this remedy mostly to male patients, who had issues with lack of libido. There is an underlying sadness in the picture of this remedy, hence low mood and low libido. In female patients, one of the main symptoms is lack of breast milk or scarse breast milk, which can make the mother feel like she is “not good enough” and exacerbate any issues of self esteem.

• galactia with sadness: Milk is scanty, disappears, or fails to appear after childbirth, often accompanied by great sadness, low spirits, and the fixed idea or statement that “she will die” (or there is no use doing anything). The mother may feel empty, used-up, exhausted, or indifferent.
• Mental state: Despairing sadness, melancholy, distrust of recovery, absent-mindedness, forgetfulness, lack of courage, and a sense of collapse or premature aging. This can include post-partum low spirits with an “empty” feeling.
• Related female symptoms that may co-exist: Relaxation of genitals, leucorrhoea (transparent or yellowish), loss of sexual desire/abhorrence of intercourse, scanty menses or amenorrhoea, genital coldness.
• Overall remedy essence of sexual/vital collapse + mental depression makes it a consideration when the post-natal picture includes these keynotes rather than, for example, the irritability/detachment of Sepia or the grief of Ignatia.

Kent and others note cases where milk failed after confinement in a woman with a history matching the remedy, and Agnus helped restore it along with the emotional state.

More recently, an interesting study was conducted on a case of post natal depression, where Agnus Castus was prescribed and the case resolved successfully: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5871165/