Abstract
Since ancient times, doctors and midwives have been surprised by the relationship between insanity and the puerperal state. Even from Hippocrates and Galen, to our contemporaries, Puzos, Levret, Lazare Rivière and Sydenham have pointed to this relationship.
But esquirol was the first, in volume I° of its
Treatise on Mental Illness, which traced a good description "of the mental alienation of women in childbirth and wet nurses".
Since then, many psychiatrists have dealt with this variety of madness. I will only remind you of Marcé's classic work, which dates back to 1838 and is entitled: Treatise on the Madness of Pregnant Women, New Births and Wet Nurses.
The puerperal madness is obviously that which occurs in the course of the puerperal state and under its more or less direct influence. But what should we understand by puerperal state? At that point, midwives do not agree. For most of them, Stoltz specifically, the puerperal state is that state "in which a woman who has just given birth is found.
the word. Monneret, for example, in 1851, expressed himself thus: "childbirth only represents a phase of the physiological state, which begins at the moment of impregnation, continues in the course of pregnancy, leads to childbirth and has as its last term weaning and the return of the rules. As long as the new organism remains grafted on the woman, as long as the necessary, physiological union that the infant contracts with her has not been broken, we must consider this succession of acts as one and the same physiological state, to which the denomination of puerperal state is perfectly appropriate".
But esquirol was the first, in volume I° of its
Treatise on Mental Illness, which traced a good description "of the mental alienation of women in childbirth and wet nurses".
Since then, many psychiatrists have dealt with this variety of madness. I will only remind you of Marcé's classic work, which dates back to 1838 and is entitled: Treatise on the Madness of Pregnant Women, New Births and Wet Nurses.
The puerperal madness is obviously that which occurs in the course of the puerperal state and under its more or less direct influence. But what should we understand by puerperal state? At that point, midwives do not agree. For most of them, Stoltz specifically, the puerperal state is that state "in which a woman who has just given birth is found.
the word. Monneret, for example, in 1851, expressed himself thus: "childbirth only represents a phase of the physiological state, which begins at the moment of impregnation, continues in the course of pregnancy, leads to childbirth and has as its last term weaning and the return of the rules. As long as the new organism remains grafted on the woman, as long as the necessary, physiological union that the infant contracts with her has not been broken, we must consider this succession of acts as one and the same physiological state, to which the denomination of puerperal state is perfectly appropriate".
| Translated title of the contribution | The puerperal psychosis (lessons given in the Asylum Santa Ana) |
|---|---|
| Original language | Spanish |
| Pages (from-to) | 314-320 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Acta Psiquiátrica y Psicológica de América Latina |
| Volume | 61 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Publication status | Published - 2015 |
