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My wife and I were married for 14 years. We have 3 children together... .

Each time she was pregnant, she actually seemed like she functioned very well. She could use reason and logic, and we were really able to talk about issues reasonably and rationally.

Then with each she had really bad postpartum depression. Where she really NEEDED me to help her with essential roles in the family. However, she would not seek help for her depression issues, and so I was never able to get back to 50/50. When I would try to establish boundaries, and met with major resistance.

Has anybody else seen this in a BPD during pregnancy?

My exgf was ok during the pregnancy except at 1 point when she turned into a raging beast threatening to have me beaten up. I do wonder whether oestrogen has a role to play.

Interesting topic. 

Sorry to hear that your partner had difficulties with PPD after the births of your children.
 That is tough on the whole family.  I feel for you.

Women of any disposition can be greatly affected by pregnancy.  Hormones play a large part in that as a woman's system behaves differently, senses are affected and obviously there is a great deal of physical change.  The bodily organs are forced to cope with all of that change and this can mean that other 'normal' functions of some organs are influenced.  Hormone imbalances are known to affect mood and we've all heard the saying 'baby brain', so there's definitely a case for changes in the brain function which might affect the symptoms of a PD.  It is widely recognised that there are changes in the brain during pregnancy and it would be interesting to see a study on pregnant BPD sufferers and the effects upon their symptoms if such a study exists. 

I suffer from a neurological condition which reduced in severity a great deal during pregnancy with my son.  It can be quite common for that to happen with my condition, so it is certainly possible that this applies to aspects of mental health.

I'd be curious to know if others are able to relate to this and have their own similar experiences.  Thanks for posting!

Love and light x

Hi HQ

I realise that hormones fluctuate wildly during pregnancy but with my two uBPD exs there seemed more to it. That time of month was a jekyl and hyde scenario but what made me wonder if there was something else at work was they both couldn't tolerate oestrogen based oral contraception. My ex wife went onto progesterone based and there was a huge difference in her behaviour.

Ive also been reading about cortisol levels in pwBPD and theres a lot there saying that it is elevated due to the hypothalamus being over active or having a poor feed back to shut it off. The hypothalamus also produces oestrogen so perhaps there could be a link. I'm no expert though just a gut feeling on my behalf.

I have 8 kids... so... .I've been around my wife while pregnant a bunch.  Much calmer... .

She has expressed to me several times that the "middle trimester" is one of her favorite experiences ever.

1st trimester she (and many women) can be sick.

3rd ... they are starting to have a hard time moving around because of size.

She would rank middle is best, then 3rd, then first.

FF

I can tell you that, for my wife, her BPD traits seem to correlate to times when she feels physically or emotionally uncomfortable. Since pregnancy is a time of tremendous physical and emotional change, it doesn't surprise me that BPD traits would be very different during pregnancy.

I will also say that the postpartum period for my wife was the worst I've ever seen her, both in terms of her depression and in terms of other BPD traits. Recovery was extremely slow, and in some ways I'd say she never returned to the baseline she was at before the pregnancy. Again, many other factors could also be at play - most importantly, we now have a child together and our lives would have changed drastically under any circumstance.

I am not aware of any studies that specifically link pregnancy and postpartum issues to PD traits, but there may be.