title: Psychiatric illness following childbirth a clinical study of 34 cases.
abstract: The study comprises of 34 cases, who developed psychiatric illness following childbirth. The diagnostic breakup reveals that 50% cases were of schizophrenia, 35.4% of affective disorder, 11.7% of organic confusional state and 2.9% of hysteria. Age of the patients ranged from 17 to 35 years, average being 24.2 years. 20.5% cases gave history of psychiatric illness in 1st degree relatives. All cases of organic psychosis, 41.6% of the affective disorder and 29.4% of the schizophrenia group had one or more of the physical complications during pregnancy, around delivery or during post-partum period. 25.2% of the cases had previous psychiatric illness following childbirth. 52.9% of the cases developed psychiatric illness in the 1st fortnight after delivery. The result of the treatment was highly satisfactory, showing improvement of all the patients included in this study.
authors.affiliation: Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Gauhati Medical College, Gauhati-781 001.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dutta
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Das
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Deka