LOVE YOU by Shoppers Drug Mart Women's Clinic

The LOVE YOU by Shoppers Drug Mart Women’s Clinic at Ontario Shores provides short term, focused consultation and treatment to women with perinatal mood disorders and other reproductive issues that affect a woman's mental health. Our clinical team includes a Psychiatrist, a Nurse Practitioner, a Registered Nurse, and a Registered Social Worker.

Ontario Shores is a teaching hospital, therefore students and other learners are sometimes involved in the services we provide.

Services Offered:

• Initial psychiatric consultation
• Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
• Psychoeducation
• Medication(s) and follow up with a Nurse Practitioner or Psychiatrist in collaboration with the primary care provider.

The average program length is 4 to 6 months.

Anxiety Disorders

• Rates of anxiety are more common in the perinatal period then non perinatal population and can co-exist with depression 
• Up to 8.5 per cent of women will develop an anxiety disorder in the perinatal period
• Signs and symptoms vary depending on the type of anxiety disorder
• Most common perinatal anxiety disorders are general anxiety disorder, panic attack, obsessive compulsive disorder

Most common symptoms:

• Sleep disturbance
• Concentration difficulties
• Excessive worry, fear and distress often over the pregnancy, delivery, fetus/baby.
• Distressful recurrent unwelcomed thoughts or ideas 
• Coping  and social functioning difficulties

Postpartum psychosis

• Symptoms most often appear with 72 hours to four weeks after delivery
• Postpartum psychosis is an emergency, hospitalization is required
• Women with history of postpartum psychosis have a greater than 50 per cent chance of re-developing
• Rare (approx. 1-2 cases per 1000 live births) 

Symptoms can include:

• Thinking and acting in unusual ways
• Hallucinating or having strange thoughts, for example that their baby is evil
• Feeling paranoid or thinking others want to  harm them
• Believing  they have special powers 

Bipolar Disorder in the Perinatal Period

•  There is no evidence of an increased chance of developing bipolar disorder during pregnancy
• Women with Bipolar Disorder are at a higher risk of experiencing manic or depressive episodes in the perinatal period
• There is an increased risk of the development of bipolar disorder in the postpartum period for women with a personal and/or family history of a mood disorder or postpartum psychosis 
• The rate of postpartum psychosis for women with untreated Bipolar Disorder is 10 to 20 per cent

Major risk factors:

• Current diagnosis of depression or anxiety or past history
• History of perinatal depression or anxiety
• Family history of depression, anxiety or psychiatric illness (especially during pregnancy or postpartum)
   

Other contributing risk factors:

• Lack of social support 
• Life stress – recent move, poor relationships, losses
• Language issues
• Domestic violence
• Excessive anxiety during pregnancy
• Unintended pregnancy
• Ambivalence towards the pregnancy
• Financial stress
• Smoking and caffeine intake
• Single status, living by self
• Health problems or difficult temperaments with baby or other children
• Chronic health problems, pregnancy/delivery complications
• Discontinuing or decreasing antidepressant medication