Getting Personal
G
A Closer Look At
Postpartum Depression
And On Trend Contributor
Barb Fritts, Ph.D.
reetings readers! I am your newest
contributor for all things pregnancy, postpartum and
parenting related. It occurred to me after my first article
last month that perhaps we should backtrack and get to
know each other first. So here’s me. I am a thirty five yearold clinical psychologist in Massachusetts who specializes
in perinatal and postpartum mental health issues, as well
as LGBTQ, trauma, women’s issues, and perfectionism. In
addition to my interest in postpartum issues, I just so
happen to have given birth to my second child on January
9th of this year. Yep, she is 2 ½ weeks old and sleeping on
my lap while I balance the laptop off to the side. People ask
how I got interested in postpartum mental health and I am
frank with them. I experienced postpartum depression with
my first baby.
On Trend contributor Ron Shapiro, Ph.D. and I have known
each other about ten years and he was shocked to hear this
news. He asked how someone so energetic as I could
possibly develop depression. I explained that risk for
depression has little to do with personality traits and that
looking back, I actually had a number of risk factors. Here
are a few that you should be aware of: