A Review on Therapeutic Intervention of Yoga and Ayurveda in Post-Partum Depression

Abstract

Introduction: Postpartum depression often starts two weeks to a month after delivery and can linger for months or even a year. According to the World Health Organization, depression affects roughly 10% of pregnant women worldwide and 13% of women in the immediate postpartum period. In India, the Prevalence of Postpartum Depression (PPD) varies from 15% to 20%. Yoga, which originated in ancient India, is recognized as an alternative medicine practice that incorporates mind-body practices. Methodology: This is a review (narrative) study, in which literature has been evaluated using electronic search in databases of PubMed, Google Scholar, Science Direct, ResearchGate, etc. Searching in the databases was made using keywords of postpartum depression, yoga in postpartum depression. There were many articles on yoga in depression but those articles were included in the study that had done research on postpartum depression, which were of research and review article type. Result: This review study includes 4 interventional studies that showed a highly significant (p yoga on postpartum women. Conclusion: This study showed the result that different limbs of yoga (i.e., Dhyana, Asanas, and Pranayama, etc.) could considerably reduce depression symptoms in postnatal women. This would also help in reducing the use of antidepressant medications. Therefore, it is recommended that yoga training should be employed in postnatal treatment.