Editing Postpartum depression (section)

=== Prior to the 19th century ===
Western medical science's understanding and construction of postpartum depression have evolved over the centuries. Ideas surrounding women's moods and states have been around for a long time,<ref name="Tasca_2012">{{cite journal |date=2012-10-19 |title=Women and hysteria in the history of mental health |journal=Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health}}</ref> typically recorded by men. In 460 B.C., Hippocrates wrote about puerperal fever, agitation, delirium, and mania experienced by women after childbirth.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Shedding More Light on Postpartum Depression – PR News|url=https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-blog/2016/january/shedding-more-light-on-postpar|website=www.pennmedicine.org|language=en-US|access-date=2020-03-25}}</ref> Hippocrates' ideas still linger in how postpartum depression is seen today.<ref name="Brockington_2005"/>

A woman who lived in the 14th century, [[Margery Kempe]], was a Christian mystic.<ref name="Kempe_2015">{{Cite book| vauthors = Kempe M |title=The Book of Margery Kempe|date=2015|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-968664-3|oclc=931662216}}</ref> She was a pilgrim known as "Madwoman" after having a tough labor and delivery.<ref name="Kempe_2015" /> There was a long physical recovery period during which she started descending into "madness" and became suicidal.<ref name="Kempe_2015" /> Based on her descriptions of visions of demons and conversations she wrote about that she had with religious figures like God and the Virgin Mary, historians have identified what Margery Kempe was experiencing as "postnatal psychosis" and not postpartum depression.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Jefferies D, Horsfall D | title = Forged by fire: Margery Kempe's account of postnatal psychosis | journal = Literature and Medicine | volume = 32 | issue = 2 | pages = 348–364 | date = 2014 | pmid = 25693316 | doi = 10.1353/lm.2014.0017 | s2cid = 45847065 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Jefferies D, Horsfall D, Schmied V | title = Blurring reality with fiction: Exploring the stories of women, madness, and infanticide | journal = Women and Birth | volume = 30 | issue = 1 | pages = e24–e31 | date = February 2017 | pmid = 27444643 | doi = 10.1016/j.wombi.2016.07.001 }}</ref> This distinction became important to emphasize the difference between postpartum depression and [[postpartum psychosis]]. A 16th-century physician, Castello Branco, documented a case of postpartum depression without the formal title as a relatively healthy woman with melancholy after childbirth, remained insane for a month, and recovered with treatment.<ref name="Brockington_2005">{{cite book | vauthors = Brockington I |chapter=A Historical Perspective on the Psychiatry of Motherhood|date=2005|title=Perinatal Stress, Mood and Anxiety Disorders|series=Bibliotheca Psychiatrica|pages=1–5|publisher=KARGER|doi=10.1159/000087441|isbn=3-8055-7865-2}}</ref> Although this treatment was not described, experimental treatments began to be implemented for postpartum depression for the centuries that followed.<ref name="Brockington_2005" /> Connections between female reproductive function and mental illness would continue to center around reproductive organs from this time through to the modern age, with a slowly evolving discussion around "female madness".<ref name="Tasca_2012"/>