Post Partum Depression

salaam

ummaminata, i just had to mention that dr.northrup is awesome! 

i think post partum depression is due to many factors having to do your body recovering from childbirth, readjusting itself to its new nonpregnant state, breastfeeding, and all the hormones going. but i agree that lifestyle plays a huge role in the severity of it (however, i am sure that some women will experience severe ppd regardless).

my experience: after my first child was born i read every book i could get my hands on. my mom came to stay with me for a few days to help after my hospital stay. after that i was on my own for the most part. i was a newly SAHM and was adjusting to the isolation, i had set alot of expectations on myself as a mother and just focused primarily on my role as a mother. stress, extreme fatigue, anger and resentment was the result. slowly i started to ease up on myself and stop trying to be supermom....who was i trying for? i had all these preconceived ideas of what a mom was and in reality it is just an illusion. i come from a very large family...how did my mom do it? she had my grandmother living with her, my aunts living in the same apartment building or neighborhood, my uncles wifes also right there. she had a support system with other women...other caretakers to share the load, other women to have tea with or go shopping with easily without the babies, other women to cook for her or with her and other women who were going through the same thing she was. they were not just mothers 24/7 but still very much felt like women. not saying things were easy for her as they were hard times. no washing machine or dryer, no dishwasher is tough with so many kids. taking the older kids to school and feeding a family of 10 daily. keeping a house relatively clean. mashAllah my mom is a fantastic women.

anyway, i really think this topic is so important! thanks for starting it

This is unnatural and too much to do. if they have  small children,Women are exhausted and they get very little rest/sleep. -Najamsahar

You know Dr. Northrup talks allot about the system of things.  She doesn't reffer to our system as patriarchical because she believes men are victims of this system too, but explains that every one is affected by this sick psychology.  In'sha'Allah I've loaned all of the books I own written by her to other Muslim mothers but when I get them back I want to look up what she called the system.

It is this sick psychology that causes people to think and function abnormally or naturally. I personally believe that consumerism, capitalism, coporate America, and immaturity contaminate the hearts and minds of so many women world wide.  It's a shame that our economic situation feels the need to compete, minimize or destroy families.  Why can't this be inclusive? Why do they have to be at odds?

I feel that feminism for all its worth, has turned a card on the women themselves. I do not know for sure what the ideals of feminism were, but surely the pictures of worked out and washed out women are no models of gender equity.-Najamsahar

 I whole heartedly agree with you there.  I read some where that that the movement was started by two Catholic nuns not just Betty Friedan.  Like the Civil Rights movement, I believe they were trying to abolish the seperate but equal standard that harmed the well being of women and children.  Many women were being hospitalized due to severe clinical depression because they couldn't tolerate the marriages and communities they lived in.  If you read feminist literature many mothers with small children committed suicide so women experiencing depression during child bear years is really not a new thing, it's just that the male dominated medical profession has now chosen to accept it as a valid problem.

What I found particularly disheartening is that Muslim women in Europe and the North America's have assimilated so much that they have abosorbed the pathologies of North American peoples. This isn't to say that Muslim countries don't have the same problems or challenges on the contrary they most likely do.  Instead of holding the male scholarship and leadership accountable for the preservation of Muslim motherhood, and Muslim women's rights, there is a certian disgust, and apathy I notice about many well educated Muslima toward sharia and their status.  Why people choose to focus on whack scholars acting like mad scientists is beyond me but never the less they do.

When I read the works of Imam Malik and Imam Shafi'i, women and mothers were clearly honored. Our only two obligations are to guard our husbands property and fufill intimacy aspects of marriage.  Yet some see the last obligation as marital rape, even though women are just as demanding regarding intimacy as men.  Muslim women aren't required to be a super woman so why in the heck trade that in for slavery?

I believe that men should particpate in parenting, child care, and house work, but Islam already has taken care of that? So the truth is, it comes down to the character, integrity, and maturity of the two people involved.  The best thing you can give your children is a good marriage. The truth is most Muslim and non Muslim women are in unhealthy marriages, that they chose to be get into and remain in.  Women never want to talk about this aspect because it's more comforterable to play the victim and blame the man. If your spouse isn't honoring sharia law or the marital agreement you made, that is a MAJOR character and integrity issue. They are violating sharia law by lying, defrauding, and dishonoring their agreements or oaths.  The Prophet pbh tolerated that crap from Ibn Ubay who committed treason at the Siege of Madina almost costing every one their life. He sws only tolerated so much of that from non-Muslim before pre-emptive self defense. The non-Muslim tribes had violated every single treaty and oath they ever took and had the guts to tell the Prophet sws that it was null in void from day one. That was the last straw for the Prophet sws.  Many Muslim spouses display that same sick characteristic of lying, defrauding, and negating their agreements.  So Muslim women but more so it is the children who end up suffering.  I realize no one is perfect but there it is totally unacceptable to lie, defraud, and not follow through on what you decide. Thats also a big maturity issue as well.  I understand certian situations but if you are in a Western Nation there is no excuse for why you are in a poor marriage you brought it on yourself.

I do believe Western women are waking up because many are choosing to sequence their life or stay home peroid.  But many professionally educated women end up suffering from depression, and end up divorced only to see they are back where they started from. Why? Everything for them has to be totally equal and perfect all of the time. I'm not talking about major stuff but little stuff.  I just finished reading a book about a White middle class family where the mom elected to stay home and quit her journalist job. She has a house keeper, a nanny, and a stable situation. Yet if her husband didn't dry one dish and she had to dry it, than that was opression.  If her husband slept in ten minutes than that was opression.  It's attitudes like that , that are self defeating and abusive.  It's a shame we are taught to hate woman hood, motherhood, and marriage.

Salaam

 Plus they did not have the Quran or something like it to say that women are NOT second class citizens. Whereas there are "fringe" groups in Islam that hold archaic views of women, this was considered mainstream and acceptable in Europe and US. The church was not considered a refuge. So thus a rejection of Christianity has a higher moral authority. 

I'm so glad you joined this conversation! I never thought about the rejection of Christanity regarding this issue, but religion plays a critical role in womens status in all soceities.  In Dr. Northrup's book "Women's Body Women's Wisdom" I believe it may be in the menstruation chapter, but in there she quotes two female scholars who believe that that the way Catholicism potrays the Virgin Mary as is unnatural, unrealistic, and cultish. This same female scholar also says when she see's a nun, she looks at them as being a traitor to the female gender, and upholding standards that violate the sacredness to motherhood. At least in theory Islamic nations had given women rights, and allowed them to particpate in governmental affairs. How much of that theory was actually implemented remains to be seen.

I think there are many complex aspects to it.

Agreed!

Salaam

wallahi, Ummaminata, I have not read any of the books you mentioned, so I cannot say much. I will try and read them and see what dr Nothrop is all about.

My concern for muslimas today is that they are being handed out a version of Islam that is not the right one. We can blame the male leadership but how much. We are living in this century where most information can be had at the click of a button. I have observed these traits in muslim women that I find really disturbing.

-Many young and educated muslimas somehow find and follow those precepts of Islam that are contrary to womens interests and well being. For eg, I have had vehement discussions with women who will say that men/husbands have the status next to God (based on the Hadith). I do not disagree with this. However, we have enough information about the husbands rights and mens status etc from our male dominated societies.

We need to have an awareness about what clearly are womens rights and anyone who takes away these rights is nothing but an abuser.

Even if we were to step into any gender discussion on many of the forums online, and take an objective look at whats going, its striking that not only men but also women are talking about mens rights.

-Muslim women have failed to come into their own and have failed to come together as a sisterhood. The one single place that I felt this sisterhood was in a small town in Texas. MashaAllah the sisters are wonderful in supporting each other and their husbands and families have fallen in sync with them. To me the reason was that the women were very united eventhough they came from varied backgrounds. Women in my local mosque and some mosques I came across in Canda and NY divided up on the basis of every reason that could be found.

-There has been no substantial voice against domestic violence and abuse. I was was close to a victim of domestic violence and I found no help from ISNA or ICNA. ISNA has a website but I guess that this is it. There is no one to answer the phone on most of the extensions.  There are only two muslim shelters where the counsellors are extremely overbooked. My experience with ISNA has been dissappointing. they have high and lofty goals to try to propagate Islam and all that stuff, but there are many problems to be dealt within the muslim  homes that wont go away unless there is sustained action.

The churches have been very active in coming out to help battered muslimas and what our dear fellow muslims are doing really beats me.

There should be a specific program nationwide where womens issues are discussed at the Friday sermons. Which brings us to the issue of space in the mosques. Women do not have adequate space in the masjid, the space they are given is usually not of the same standard as that of the men. And the friday khutbahs need to be published on the masjids website so that everyone has access to it.

-Muslim women have a great capacity to feel happy by comparing Islam to other religions. Again, visit a few forums and see for yourself. I dont understand how talking about christianity or any other religion is going to help us!

-There is an pathetic lack of knowledge among  Asian women about their status ordained by God. For eg: most Indian pakistani women assume that the man is always in control and the duties of the wife are principally to "take care of the husband" from pressing his clothes to having perfect meals ready even when she is sick.

Also there is a very subtle abuse going on in a high percentage of these families. My guess is that about 80% of the women experience abuse at the hands of their husbands. To me any or all of the following constitute abuse (the standard is islamic not the western definition of abuse)

Maybe this surprises many but this is so commonplace in even families that have been in the US for 2 generations and up, are very islamic in that they pray and go to masjid.

-restricting her from activities based on the arguments such as "you wont have enough time to spend with me if you do such and such"

-restricting her from pursuing higher studies, getting a drivers license,  getting her a car so that she can move about by herself

-Not providing some amount of money that she can spend freely of her own will.

-Expecting an unusual amount of housework which is unnecessary. Not helping wiht household chores when she has extra demands of prayer esp during ramadhan.

-Expecting the wife to be very particular in matters of religion like wearing an abaya and not speaking to mahrams. The husbands of many of these women  are without beards and they interact freely with women.

-Routinely women are not given anything in inheritance. The reasoning is that the parents spent money on them for the wedding and thats how they equate it.

The three results of this disease within our communities is already visible and all of them hurt.

1)Many women are leaving Islam. We talk about women who enter Islam but the numbers of women who are leaving are staggering. The reasons are disillusionment and logically they refuse to accept that God could be unfair to women (the potrayal by most of the scholars of women is unfair)

2)We also have another breed of muslim women who have picked out from Islam what they wanted, modified it and started a religion named Islam too but in that they have what they did not get from mainstream Islam.

3) Thousands of women are suffering in the name of Islam. They suffer in silence and they cry out. No one listens to them. A muslim woman can bring out the Quran, Hadith, anything and everything, but nobody's listening to your one little voice sista!

As an end note I hope and pray that muslim women come together and find their strenght.

And please do not reply to this post with "but my husband is so sweet" husband worshippers can start another thread.

Najamsahar