KOZHIKODE: On January 7, 2021, Kasaragod police arrested a 24-year-old woman for allegedly strangling her newborn daughter with an earphone cable. When her husband found her bleeding on December 16, he took her to a hospital and the doctors who examined her told her husband Shafi that his wife was bleeding because she had given birth. Later during a search, police found the baby’s body under her bed with the earphone cable still around its neck.
These instances may be isolated, but they are a disturbing issue which needs to be addressed. PN Suresh Kumar, professor of psychiatry at KMCT Medical College and senior consultant psychiatrist, IQRAA Hospital in Kozhikode, said 30 per cent of the woman patients who come to consult him have personality disorders.
“Women between 20 and 40 years are struggling to cope with the cultural as well as societal changes. Most of the woman patients show emotionally unstable personality disorders. They have sudden mood swings and they feel boredom with their present life. They are also attention-seeking and addictive to gadgets or social media. Such personality disorders were not prevalent in our society before.”
“People with personality disorders as well as anti-social personality traits can go to any extend if they are not diagnosed or treated at the right time,” Suresh Kumar said.
The postpartum psychosis is also something that our society had not not taken seriously earlier. “We have started to discuss about the mental health of mothers along with children. It’s a good sign. The next generation will struggle hard to confront the cultural change in future. Foreseeing this, counselling sessions should be added as a part of the curriculum in schools,” he added.