Pregnancy, anxiety cause women’s mental disorder – NGO

Pregnancy, anxiety, stress and post natal periods and state of great disturbance could make women have mental disorders.

Mental disorder also occurs in one out of every 1,000 women after they have given birth.

Mrs Aminatu Bukari, Executive Director of Mind Freedom Ghana, made these known during a forum on “female reproduction and its impact on their mental health” for the residents of Nima, an Accra suburb, on Thursday.

She noted that about seven out of every 10 women experience “baby blues” and anxiety six months after delivery.

Mrs Bukari, who is also the National Coordinator for Community Psychiatric Nurses, noted that mental disorder affected all human beings at a point in time and called on all to desist from anxiety as one of the surest ways of beating down bad mental health.

“Good mental health is to be physically healthy, with your mind at rest, ability to cope with challenges and enjoy good relationship with family members,” she noted.

She noted that depression occurred when a person always felt sad for a very long time when bad things happened beyond reasonable period.

Mrs Bukari cited quick heart beat, pain in the chest, short breath, dizziness, poor concentration, loss of weight, tearfulness, loss of interest in sex as some of the signs of depression.

Others included tiredness all the time, feeling of guilt, waking up too early in the morning and thought of suicide and poor sleep.

She noted that stress on the other hand occurred when one becomes unwell after a very bad event had happened which had the potential to affect relatives and friends.

“Some of the features of stress include; despair, confusion and intense anger”.

She appealed to women to take good care of themselves when they get pregnant to avoid complication during and after birth.

Mrs Bukari appealed to Ghanaians to give their wives the needed love, care and support before, during and after delivery.

Source: GNA