I think it's a symptom of modernity actually. In the olden days women could be expected to be bossed about and dictated to, MY grandmother (her births are on here) was PHYSICALLY TIED to the bed in lithotomy position for hours after one of her births as a "punishment" from the nurses for vomiting on them when she was given ether for pain relief during stitching, her choices and experience were dreadful. Nowadays women have "rights" and are theoretically not told what to do. But that's it, it's theoretical.

Because NOW, we have the facade of "choice" which means when the medico's mess things up it is the WOMAN who bears the blame. Because if they tell you your baby is gigantic and you must have a section and it turns out it's only 6lbs, it's YOU who is accused in the shops by nosy strangers of "taking the easy way out". The implication of all this so-called choice is that if it goes wrong it's because somewhere along the way you made the wrong choice. There seems to be so little talk of the altered states of mind of pregnancy and labour, a woman who "chooses" an unfashionable birth option (which depends on who is criticising you at any given moment) you can face reactions that make it seem that labour is nothing, and just because you're in labour you can STILL make the "right" decisions. Labour is a medical event, not to be discussed, and to be dismissed as a factor in any decision you made during your birth.

It's the same with all of the getting up and about and doing right after birth. After my homebirth i stayed in bed for 7 days. No, i didn't "need" to physically, but i'd just had a baby, and i was enjoying her. I LOVED lying on the bed, BFing, chatting to rello's on the phone, recieving guests, snoozing... I can remember my midwives wanting to know why i hadn't gone to the shops! The RIGHT to be up and about has become the EXPECTATION that one WILL be up and about. "You may" becomes "you MUST" all too quickly.

To me acting as though nothing is different and everyone especially mum can and should go on as before is probably MORE damaging than overdoing the "you rest my poor darling" style of the olden days. Perhaps if everyone took the transition to motherhood more seriously and treated new mums accordingly we would see less PND in our society.

Bx