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ABSTRACT: The notion that pregnancy can, for some women, be a time of unhappiness and depression has only recently been recognized in media and by the general public. Although researchers and clinicians have begun to study antenatal depression with regards to prevalence, associated factors, and treatment approaches and outcomes, less is known about women's lived experience of this phenomenon. A hermeneutic phenomenological study was conducted with six pregnant women who scored 10, 11, or 12 on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, indicating mild to moderate symptoms of depression. Participants were interviewed individually regarding their experiences of depression during pregnancy. Data generated in the form of transcripts were analyzed and five themes emerged: disconnection vs. new connection and/or reconnection; loss of identity vs. new identity; fatigue and illness vs. vitality and wellness; anxiety and insecurity vs. confidence and security; and sadness and hopelessness vs. joy and expectation. The overarching shared meaning of these experiences was ambivalence. Findings provided rich, thick descriptions of the lived experience and meaning of antenatal depression. Future research and implications for counseling practice are discussed.
KEY WORDS: Pregnancy, antenatal depression, qualitative, ambivalence, lived experience, lived meaning.
INTRODUCTION
Pregnancy is often thought of as a joyous time, and for many women it is, but for some women, pregnancy is filled with unhappiness, hopelessness, and depression. Recent media attention has captured the most sensational cases of depression during pregnancy and postpartum. In the United States, media frenzy occurred when Andrea Yates drowned her five children in the bathtub (Houston Chronicle, 2006). In Canada, Suzanne Killinger-Johnson threw herself and her baby in front of a moving subway train (MaharSylvestre, 2001). Both cases may have brought some awareness to postpartum depression; however, far more attention was paid to the sensationalized aspects of these cases than to the women's experiences leading up to these incidents.
Though postpartum depression has become a more recognized diagnosis due to recent coverage in media, depression during pregnancy, or antenatal depression, has remained poorly understood among the general population and the health and mental health care systems. Though antenatal depression is not differentiated from other forms of depression in the DSM-IV, it is unique because of the context in which it takes place, and the effects that it can have...