Psychological support for new mothers is very important according to a new study and when support from a specially trained health visitor is made available, this helps to keep away the baby blues.
Visits from Specially trained health visitors can greatly help new mothers since they are able to offer psychological support and also help to asses mental health problems.
In the study, some of the women were given normal care from a health visitor, whereas the other group got support from specially trained health visitors and the latter group had a 30% less chance of developing depression related to child birth than the first group.
Even women who had no depression symptoms were seen to benefit from the support offered by these specially trained health visitors. The psychological approaches that were seen to be particularly effective were those based on listening techniques and cognitive behavioral techniques.
Factors such as trust and confidentiality play an important part in determining the benefit that new mothers get from visits of the health worker and time spent together can mean a reduction in depressive symptoms. Post Natal Depression is thought to affect about one in 10 women.
