Post Partum Psychiatric Syndromes : Are They Biologically Determined?

Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Colleagues Ladies and Gentlemen, To begin with I would like to extend my grateful thanks to the Awards Committee of Indian Psychiatric Society for conferring upon me the Tilak Venkoba Rao Oration Award for this year. Many young stalwarts of our society have delivered this oration in the past. I really feel honoured and privileged to stand in their line and to pay my humble tr ibute to Late Ti lak Venkoba Rao in whose memory this orat i on has been insti tuted. The topic I have selected for today's orat ion is " Poil Parlutn Psychiatric Syndromes : Are they Biologically determined ?". Pregnancy and post pa r tum period are generally regarded as matura t ional crises equal in importance to those of adolescence and the menopause. Varieties of stresses are faced during this period like endocrinal changes, changes in body image, activation of unconscious psychological conflicts pertaining to pregnancy and intrapsychic reorganisation associated with becoming a mother. Psychiatric illness following child birth has been an area of concern to medical profession for a long t ime. My interest in the area of post pa r tum psychiatric illness was aroused about 10 years back while working in the general hospital psychiatric set up. It was a clinical observation which I am sure many colleagues will share that percentage of women suffering from psychiatric illness following child birth was considerably higher than what was observed in general population. I t was then that our init ial work on the subject had started and the findings were published in 1982 (Gautam et al. , 1982) "Post pa r t um psychiatric syndromes an analysis of 100 consecutive cases". Since then this has been an a rea of my constant research preoccupation.