Surviving men's depression: Women partners' perspectives

Impact Factor:1.137 | Ranking:21/36 in Social Sciences, Biomedical | 81/136 in Public, Environmental & Occupational Health | 5-Year Impact Factor:1.396Source:2012 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2013)
Joan L Bottorff joan.bottorff{at}ubc.ca

University of British Columbia, Kelowna, CanadaJohn L Oliffe

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, CanadaMary T Kelly

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, CanadaJoy L Johnson

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, CanadaJoanne Carey

University of British Columbia, Kelowna, CanadaWhile men’s gendered experiences of depression have been described, the perspectives of women partners who are affected by men’s depression have received little attention. Women partners were recruited to explore how men’s depression impacts them and its influence on gender regimes. Individual interviews with 29 women spouses were coded and analysed. Although idealized femininity positions women as endlessly patient and caring, our findings reveal significant challenges in attempting to fulfil these gender ideals in the context of living with a male partner who is experiencing depression. The strain and drain of living with a depressed man was a key element of women’s experiences. Four sub-themes were identified: (1) resisting the emotional caregiver role, (2) shouldering family responsibilities, (3) connecting men to professional care and (4) preserving the feminine self. The findings suggest that men’s depression has great potential to dislocate heterosexual gender regimes, and attention to gender relations should be included to ensure successful care management of men who experience depression.

© 2013 SAGE Publications. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC

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Women unaware of when breast cancer risk is greatest

Only one per cent of women know that older women - those 80 or older - have the greatest risk of developing breast cancer according to new research (Br J General Practice 2007; 57: 404-406) published today.

Worryingly, the research also found that 56 per cent of women wrongly believed that age does not affect breast cancer risk.

The strongest risk factor for breast cancer - after gender - is age. The older the woman, the higher her risk. About one in 70 women will develop breast cancer between 40 and 50 years old but for women from 80 to 90 the figure is one in 25.

The study, funded by Cancer Research UK and the NHS Breast Screening Programme, surveyed 1,496 women who were asked "When is a woman most likely to get breast cancer?". Respondents were given a series of ten year age bands and 'age doesn't matter' from which to select their answer. Of those surveyed, 99 per cent answered incorrectly.

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When New Mom Can't Breast-Feed, Dozens of Women Help Out

Filed under: In The News, Breast-Feeding

Credit: Getty Images

Eva van Dok Pinkley, a Brooklyn, N.Y., actress and magazine researcher can't breast-feed her newborn because she had a double mastectomy last year.

No matter. The London Daily Mail reports 25 women are pumping and donating their breast milk.

"What they are doing, it's not easy to do," van Dok Pinkley tells the newspaper. "I'm just stunned at the amount of trouble that they are going through for me. I think of them and what they have done and give thanks."

Van Dok Pinkley got pregnant last September after a battle with breast cancer so intense she had given up having children. She had abandoned hope after miscarriages, failed fertility treatments and then her cancer.

When she and her husband, Stuart, finally found out they were having a baby, she knew she couldn't breast-feed. So she began doing research on the Internet.

After consultations with doctors and lactation consultants, the Mail reports, she began asking for donations from other expecting mothers at her yoga studio, via email lists and through friends.

Among the women who responded was Kristi Guigliano, the mother of an 8-month-old boy.

"The first time Eva and I met, it was a very emotional thing to, first of all, have found someone so perfect, so close and so in need of the milk," Guigliano tells the newspaper.

The Mail reports the women are either ongoing donors, one-time donors or soon-to-be moms who have pledged milk if they have some left over.

"When they told me what they were doing, I thought, 'Only in New York,' " Stuart Van Dok Pinkley tells the Mail.

Only in New York? Not really.

In 2009, ParentDish reported on Robbie Goodrich, a widowed English professor in Marquette, Mich. When his wife died shortly after his son, Moses, was born, more than two dozen women shared their breast milk with the infant.

Related: Women Rally Around Widower to Breast-Feed Infant Son

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Stroke Rates Up in Pregnant Women, New Moms, Study Finds

Filed under: In The News, Pregnancy Health, Research Reveals

Credit: Getty Images

We've asked this before, but don't pregnant women have enough to worry about already?

Now, you can add an increase in stroke rates to their list of health concerns.

According to the Wall Street Journal, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found the rate of pregnant women being hospitalized for strokes rose 47 percent between 1994-95 and 2006-7, while the rate rose 83 percent for women who had given birth within the last three months.

Now, those numbers are still very low, the newspaper reports, with just .22 hospitalizations for every 1,000 deliveries, but, still, the numbers have experts concerned.

The findings, published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, could be a result of pregnant women being at risk more and more often for things such as obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure, all risk factors for stroke, the Journal reports.

Lead study author Elena Kuklina, an epidemiologist at the CDC's heart disease and stroke prevention division, tells the newspaper women should get general health exams before they plan to get pregnant to determine any issues that could be reversed.

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