Change Your Brain Every Day - Why Do Mothers Suffer from Depression?

Episode Date: May 31, 2018

In our society we are often fed the message that motherhood should cause nothing but infinite joy and love, but if this is the case, why are do so many mothers suffer from depression? Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss how stress and brain chemistry can cause emotional imbalances. 

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. And stay tuned for a special code for a discount to Amen Clinics for a full evaluation, as well as any of our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Welcome, everybody. Thanks for being with us. This comes from Frankly Speaking Up. I just listened to the hand holding podcast. What a joy Dr. Amen and his wife Tana are. Based on research studies, we now have learned from the podcast when people hold hands, their

brainwaves sync up. Using this information, I would like to encourage all listeners to think of the elder people in your community. They have survived many years of ups and downs, but now life has many reasons to be down, down, down. They've lost their friends, family, control of their independence, and other losses which over time add up. Now, armed with great information on the Handholding Podcast, I encourage you to get your own brain waves at peace. That's right. Don't bring in your own crazy brain waves.

And sign up to volunteer with seniors at facilities, hospice, or churches. That's lovely. That is really lovely. Another one from my nickname 247. I really enjoy Dr. Daniel and Tan Amen. They are full of information for brain health. The podcasts are short, so it doesn't take a lot of time to listen. However, they contain helpful and interesting information about optimizing your brain and your life. They are also a delightful couple. I wonder if Chloe would say that we are a delightful couple. No, we gross her out.

She's so annoyed by us. She rolls her eyes at us. She says that we are a crazy family. That's actually what she told me this morning. So my older son- She said we were certifiable. When he was young, he said, we remind him of Homer Simpson's family. It's like, let's pretend.

Oh, that's hilarious. When we went to take a picture together, let's pretend we're a nice, normal family. Right. Chloe actually compared us to the Addams family, so I'm not quite sure, but. All right. Today, we're going to talk about pregnancy and the impact of a mother's depression on the cognitive function of the children. A new study reveals maternal depression can have a negative effect on her child's cognitive development. Researchers found children whose mothers were depressed scored lower on verbal IQ tests at age five than their peers whose mothers did not suffer from depression.

I have a question. Is this during the fetal period? Is this during pregnancy or is this actually on children baby's health. So depression changes the chemistry in the brain. It increases stress hormones. And if she's depressed when she's pregnant, she's also less likely, she's also more likely to be depressed after the baby's born to interact less with the baby.

And that can affect the baby cognitively. Now there's so many things you can do about it. My worry in talking about studies like this is you know we'll make people feel bad and I don't want to. What I want to help people with is if you get depressed you have to take care of it which doesn't mean start medication. Well, you can't start some of those medications when you're pregnant. Well, we tend not to. Well, a lot of doctors do.

I mean, it's a big issue. If I'm depressed, do I take medicine during pregnancy or do I not? But some of them you can't take, correct? Well, some of them are not recommended. Right. And they do have potential side effects. But if you're going to kill yourself, that's like way more of a problem. Right?

So you're always balancing, you know, the risk of keeping, letting someone stay depressed versus the impact it's going to have on them and the babies. I think as a mother, I can certainly understand why when I'm carrying a child, what I go through affects a developing fetus. I mean, I think that's kind of logical to most people who are, I think, in this day and age. We understand that. But let's talk for a minute about what happens with the effect on children after birth if

the mother is depressed. So what goes on? I mean, to me, it seems sort of, even that seems somewhat logical, knowing what I know now. If a mother is highly depressed and she is withdrawn, you're not going to be spending the time. I mean, I just know as a mother how much time. You know, I mean, I read to Chloe every night. I was, you know, helping her with homework. And if you are not present to be able to do those things, then that's going to, I would think, affect their IQ as well.

Also, modeling, right? Modeling is going to affect them. So what else? So you'll hold the baby less. You'll cuddle the baby less. You'll stimulate the baby less. You'll leave the baby alone more. And even though this study was done on mothers, I'm sure it's not just mothers. If fathers are depressed, they're gonna have

less positive input from the father as well. And so in the podcast, we always talk about the four circles. And so if the mom or the dad is depressed, well, there's biology that goes with this. I mean, you don't know that they're not living in a mold-infested house causing the depression or that they're not using personal products that have wiped out their hormones that that's causing depression. So there's a biology to the depression. And the baby, you know, when they're raised in the mother's womb, the baby is also bathed by those toxins or has that genetic vulnerability itself. There's also the psychological reasons for depression. So mom may be more negative or dad may be more negative.

That negativity may, in fact, affect the relationship and the stress between the parents may clearly affect the baby or the negativity that the mom or dad feel when they're depressed, they may begin to attribute things to the baby that they just absolutely... I see this all the time as a child psychiatrist. Well, this child doesn't want to do what I want them to do. They're attributing adult motivation to someone that doesn't have an adult brain. Well, this child knows he irritates me when he cries. Well, he may have a gut problem, and that's why the baby's crying. But you take things personally. The social impact of depression is there's less interaction. There's more isolation.

There's more loneliness. We know when we believe baby's alone, that's bad, bad, bad for the baby. Right. There's more isolation. There's more loneliness. We know when we believe baby's alone that's bad, bad, bad for the baby. Right. We know on even animal studies, even with monkeys and things like that, they'll rip their own hair out. I mean, it's terrible when you isolate them. Right. So when moms get depressed in the animal kingdom, that clearly affects the development of the

baby. And there's a spiritual component to it. That mom or dad doesn't really see this really beautiful gift and deep sense of meaning and purpose. And they feel guilty. They almost feel sinful that they don't have those positive, happy feelings that you see on the Gerber baby commercial.

I was really actually impressed with, do you remember when Brooks Shields talked about her postpartum depression and she, I know she had a lot of criticism, but I was actually really impressed that she was willing to come forth and face that criticism so she could help other moms. Because postpartum depression is a very real thing. I mean it's and it's tough. I've seen women go through it and it's brutal, just brutal. So that there's help for it. I mean it's just so important to get that treated. It's common. Right. It's very common. It's not shameful. And it's going to be more common

coming forward now that 20% of teenage girls are struggling with depression. Right. And 23% of women between the ages of 20 and 60 are taking antidepressant medication, according to one study. And your hormones are whacked, I'm telling you. Your hormones are whacked. And so if a mom feels depressed, what are some of the things she can do? You're asking me or we're going to talk about

this? We're going to talk about it. Yeah. So I mean, the number one, I think the number one thing you do is don't feel shame about it. The number one thing you do is get help because it's not your fault. It's not a shameful thing. It's just a thing. So it's not a good or a bad thing. It's just a thing. It can have a big impact on your children. So it's important a good or a bad thing. It's just a thing. It can have a big impact on your children. So it's important to get help. It's important, but it's not shameful. Check your important numbers. Because very often that is when... Thyroid. We just talked about thyroid. Thyroid. Hashimoto's shows itself either during or after pregnancy.

So important little tip. Important little tip that I learned from my doctor that I love so much. So I loved being pregnant. Like I loved being pregnant. Never felt better. Never had morning sickness. Loved it. He guessed that. He never asked me. I walked in his office and he was like doing this thing.

And he actually told me about my life. I never actually, he never read my history. And I'm like, well, that's in my history. That's in my history. He goes, I'm not reading your history. I want to ask you. And he guessed all these things about me. And one of the things he guessed is he said, let me guess, you never felt better than when

you were pregnant. And I'm like, how on earth would you know that? He goes, because all Hashimoto's, he goes, all of my Hashimoto's patients feel better when they're pregnant. Some of them stay pregnant because of it. And I'm like, what? That doesn't make sense. He goes, yeah, because normally you feel terrible. You suffer with this brain fog and sort of depression and this off and on sort of

like feeling good, feeling bad. But when you get pregnant, it shuts off that antibody response, that body's attacking itself. And so women will want to stay pregnant. But when you, after you have the baby, guess what happens? It goes back, right? So get your thyroid checked. Isn't that interesting? Very important. Right. Exercise, really important, even though you don't feel like it. Walking like you're late, 45 minutes, four times a week can help.

I love when I see women in those jogger strollers, because it's just such a healthy thing and so good for the baby to be out and it's really good for you. Dr. Omega-3 fatty acids, really important. Learning how to not believe every stupid thing you think and then getting assessed. We have seven, soon to be eight clinics. In fact, probably by the time this podcast is released, we'll have our new clinic opening up in Encino. And we've actually found people using the podcast code to come to the clinic more than ever this spring. So we're really- Yeah, we had a whole bunch of people

this month, last month, use it. Excited about that. What we've seen here at Amen Clinics is depression is not one thing. It's many different things. So what kind of depression do you have? And I had a fun thing happen yesterday. It was with a consultant who had actually been scanned and I had him take our brain health assessment. So if you go to brainhealthassessment.com, you can take it. It's free. And his brain type correlated perfectly with his scan, which was really cool. And, you know, that's why we created the brain health assessment for people who can't afford to get scanned. It'll help you know what's my type, what supplements are more likely to be helpful for me.

And again, I think anybody that struggles with depression, multiple vitamin, fish oil, what's my type, what supplements are more likely to be helpful for me. And again, I think anybody that struggles with depression, multiple vitamin, fish oil, check your vitamin D level, optimize it. And then it depends, are you more worried, rigid, and flexible, things don't go your way, you get upset, and you want to find ways to boost serotonin like 5-HTP or saffron. If you have really low energy, SAMe might be helpful. You know, one of the things we didn't talk about is one thing that can actually make depression worse for new moms, they're not sleeping.

So that's a big issue if you're not sleeping and you're up all night with a baby. So you may want to figure out a way to get some help, right? So someone in your family who could give you a rest for a night. Yeah, you don't want to have the idea that you should be super mom. No. Because nobody is. No, no, no. No, I asked my mom, can you help me for a night?

Let me sleep. And, you know, I was just, again, I was lucky that I was able to get my baby on a sleep schedule pretty early, but not everyone can do that. So I know some babies aren't as easy to get on sleep schedules. But in, you know, trying to engage people in your family to help you and not thinking that it all has to be completely on you is really important. Because you've got to sleep. Thank you so much. You are such a thoughtful human being.

I adore you. Let's hold hands. Let's hold hands. Let's hold hands. Stay with us. Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing

to get a free signed copy of the Brain Warriors Way and the Brain Warriors Way cookbook we give away every month.