Why Pregnancy Can Be So Tough on a Mom’s Mental Health

Pregnancy is often portrayed as a wonderful time in a woman's life, filled entirely with happy and hopeful emotions. And it is, for some lucky women. But the reality for a large percentage of pregnant women doesn't match this image.

A recent study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry bears this out. Researchers at King's College London found that 1 in 4 pregnant women have mental health problems. These include depression (found in 11 percent), anxiety (15 percent), eating disorders (2 percent), obsessive-compulsive disorder (2 percent), post-traumatic stress disorder (just under 1 percent) and smaller incidences of bipolar disorder and other disorders.