Postpartum Depression & Goop

My speculative opinion is that PD is mainly a matter of nutrient depletion. Pregnancy (and presumably also lactation, as well as the mental stress of dealing with childbirth) places a huge demand on the body for vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc. A woman who is not replenishing her nutrient stores with a nutrient-dense diet will be susceptible to exhausting said stores as nutrients are "siphoned off" to support her baby. Since it's hard to feel good when the substrates for your body's feel-good chemicals are lacking, depression naturally sets in until the mother is finally (if ever) able to replenish her nutrient stores faster than the rate at which they're being used up.

I read a theory once that suggested that there's some sort of imprinting that goes on for the mother right after birth, and that in modern times this is often disrupted by birthing practices. The theory went that when the imprinting is disrupted, the human mother basically (on some deep level) interprets this as her baby was stillborn, and goes into some sort of mourning reaction.

Certainly if you compare how a "paleo" woman would have given birth to a modern woman giving birth, there are lots of things that could interfere with a process like this. Today, a mother often won't hold the baby right away, and even when she does, the baby will be taken away soon for her to "rest." The baby spends hours and hours isolated in a nursury. The mother is often drugged for one reason or another. The hospital setting isn't very natural or comfortable, often. The birth process is essentially always painful for modern women, while for women from traditional groups in many cases labour wasn't painful at all (perhaps due to wider hips from better nutrition).

But it's just a theory and I don't even remember where I read it.

I am sure that paleolithic women would have probably been a bit emotional just after birth because of the huge change in hormones but I don't think they would have had postpartum depression the way that many women do today. Based soley on my experiences (I have two children) and those of my friends I believe that postpartum depression is caused by lifestyle. Friends and family that did not take care of them selves (eating nutrient-rich foods, exercising, trying to get a decent amount of sleep) and were under a tremendous amount of stress (teenage mother, seriously ill child, marital problems) seem to have been diagnosed with this disorder pretty often. I don't mean to offend anyone with my opinion. I just believe that when the other areas of life are going well that mental health will often follow suit.