Presentation summary
Giving birth is an intense physical and emotional experience. Also, 50 to 80% of mothers experience “babyblues” on the 3rd day after giving birth. Symptoms are transient, and most often disappear within 2 weeks afterdelivery. However, perinatal period remains a time of vulnerability, and PPD’s underdiagnosed: 20% of mothers haven’t any support.

If left untreated, they cause harmful effects such as disturbances in mother-child interaction and can even leadto suicide, the leading cause of maternal mortality, considered up to one year after the end of pregnancy (17%of maternal deaths with 45 deaths) (1). PPD’s etiology is not clearly defined. Risk factors for suicide, personaland family, and perinatal depression must be sought in the three dimensions: somatic, psychiatric and social,because scalable. Low spirits, a lack of pleasure, sleep and eating disorders, timidity and fear, anxiety andanger, a loss of self-care and baby care, and even suicidal ideation are all common symptoms of PPD (2).

Recent studies have shown that acupuncture may improve depressive symptoms in patients with PPD. It might through adjusting peripheral inflammatory response by up-regulating anti-inflammatory cytokines and down-regulating pro-inflammatory cytokines (3). One mechanism may be attributed to changes in the amygdala sub-region structure and the functional connections of brain areas linked to the processing of negative emotions(4). Finaly, fecal microbiota may be useful predictive biomarkers to predict PPD patients likely to respond to acupuncture (5).

Acupuncture, with a physical and psychological dimension, may help alleviate symptoms in patients with PPD.She supports mothers from the very beginning, especially when the baby blues persists to prevent postnatal depression.