The Lived Experience of Postpartum Depression: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

Postpartum depression has been studied from a variety of perspectives and by many disciplines. The aim of this article is to review qualitative literature exploring the first-person accounts of women diagnosed with postpartum depression and highlight the absence of work in madness discourse. Searches of multiple databases (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Sociological Abstracts, Sociology Database, Web of Science, Genderwatch, PILOTS, MedLine from PubMed, PsycINFO) were undertaken. There is a significant gap in literature that exists in relation to the lived experience of women diagnosed with postpartum depression who do not identify as mentally ill.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Ellen Olsen-Lynch (Trent University) for her valuable assistance in the initial literature searches for this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.