The evolving illness

For years, it was called the baby blues. The sadness and illnesses felt by women after giving birth was not even officially listed as an illness.

To this day, no one really knows what postpartum depression is all about.

Yes, advances have been made in the diagnosing of the illness. Yes, the symptoms of depression and psychosis are much more evident than they ever were.

But what can in trigger? The practice of diagnosing some mental illnesses is changing by the year. Schizophrenia, for example, is no longer thought of only something that's inherited.

Illnesses like schizophrenia, however, at least have had the backing of researchers and even some politicians. Now postpartum depression has taken that step with the passage of the MOTHERS act, which will help those diagnosed with the illness to achieve insurance parity.

It will also encourage further research into an illness that had long been ignored until several high profile public figures began to talk about it.

It will encourage people to study cases that are similar to what my mother experienced when she suffered from the symptoms of it in 1967 and 1968.

She refused to leave the house for days, and she went into panic attacks whenever she would attempt to do the normal routine chores of her life.

From there, her mental state evolved, and she developed the full-blown symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder that ultimately led to her 2003 death.

To this day, we still don't know if there was a postpartum connection to the OCD. Maybe someday we will.