The Importance of the Postpartum Partner (for Gwyneth Paltrow and Non-Celebs Alike)

While reading this interview with Gwyneth Paltrow in People I realized that there's an all-too-common misconception about Postpartum Mood Disorders: that a person must be crying all the time in order to be diagnosed. Not so! The symptoms are often subtler, yet no less serious. That sense of being "cut off" from one's emotions is a common symptom of PPMDs. And it's often one's partner who notices these sometimes subtle, internal shifts. Sometimes it takes an attuned partner (such as Chris Martin) to know when something sounds a little off in ourselves.