I found this article when going to check my e-mail. It is about a study done that was published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing which examined the impact of infant gender on postpartum depression for women in France. Basically, the article is examing research that was done that demonstrated that women who gave birth to boys were more likely to expirience postpartum depression than women who gave birth the girls.
After reading the article, I do not feel fully convinced by the evidence presented. But, I do feel that there are some interesting points made about the gender differences between boys and girls even from birth that correlate with this class.
If you would like, take a look. The article is pretty short. Thanks!
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/depression/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100198969&page=1
9 comments:
I just read this article as was going to post about it because I too don't find the data very convincing. They stated the possible reasons for this increased depression following the birth could be tied to the fact that boys toddlers are harder to care for than girls and that women may just like daughthers more than sons. There wasn't really any backing to these theories besides their own personal commentary and assumptions.
I always find it hard to believe a study that has such few participants and in this case only 3 of the 17 mothers had girls, really how can you decide based on those numbers if boys really cause post-partum depression. While I can see in the countries where male children are preferred over female as far as status is concerned why women would prefer t have a son and therefore be sad. But sadness is different than post-partum depression. I also believe that the theory that boys are harder to care for as infants is not proven and can't be used as a basis for leading to post-partum depression. Isn't it the hormones and then lack of hormones after birth that is believed to lead to a cause of post-partum depression??? Not if your child will be hard to care for.
This article is not convincing to me either. In my own experience with friends and family women tend to want daughters and men want sons. I think this is because women relate to women better while men relate to men better. However, this is a short-lived want. If parents are truly loving and want to be parents they are welcoming to either sex. I find this interesting because I think we have natural human instincts that make us want to carry on the human race (ie reproduction). I think that our bodies/hearts/minds know that we need males and females to continue the human race, therefore I think having either sex would be equally fulfilling.
I also can't help but think about our class discussion regarding gendered violence. The facts were chilling, especially the fact that there more women than men born in the world. However, because of gender violence in some countries there are significantly less women than men. I am terrified by the thought of female genocide. I can't help but think about the countries that actually kill babies if they are girls and I can't imagine how they think they wlil be able to actively reproduce without females. I could only imagine that in these countries women would develop post-pardom depression when they have little girls because of the stigmas by society.
I agree with everyone. I don't think the study was large enough to convince me of what they found. I do however, think the subject of this study is very interesting. I think it'd be worthwhile to conduct a larger study to see if the findings are significant.
An interesting additive is that a person I know is having a baby girl in May and when he found out it was a girl he wasn't as excited as he was when he was hoping for a boy.
Like everyone else, I agree this study is not very convincing. I read through the first page and hoped to continue with possible theories about postpartum depression on the next page; but there was nothing more to support their claim. I think the study was much too small. While this example seems to be a failed attempt, I think it would be interesting to study about on a larger scale.
I find the theory very interesting. Weather or not you want to believe the data, I believe that we do live in a society that is all about "me". Although this study was a small one, the fact remains that many westernized women do want a "mini me", as stated in the article. Women want someone that looks like them and that they can dress like them and someone they can mold to be like them (cognitive and social learning theories). However, can society create depression?
This study lacks any real evidence, (as stated by others)to show that boys are the cause for depression. I think the cause of depresssion is pretty evenly split between being caused by males and females, with the real cause being that the couple is hoping throughout the entire pregnancy for a child of one sex and then gets the other. I feel however that this depression soon wears off as you always see couples bragging about their new baby, and not just plainly saying "oh, ya we had a girl/boy".
I think this is an interesting article because it's in opposition to the study done in China which suggested that girls were more depressing. But, I suppose you could use the same reasoning for this article just in the opposite manner. Perhaps women are socialized to prefer girl babies because they supposedly require more nuturing and emotionally intensive care and this is what mothers are socialized to do.
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