Postpartum Depression (PPD) is a serious mental health problem characterised by a prolonged period of emotional disturbance, occurring at a time of major life change and increased responsibilities in the care of a newborn infant. PPD can have significant consequences for both the new mother and family.

PPD was a pro bono project worked in collaboration with a Design Agency Firm in the US. The rise in the number of PPD cases in North America over the last few years has become a major concern. Due to the different variations in environment - personal, social and work and also biological and physical changes are leading to harmful affects to the mental health of women. The joyful and special period of motherhood is being lost due to the societal expectations and unrealistic norms of the world we live in. 

Project Duration : 4 months

Domain : Social Impact, Mental Health

Role : UX Research and Design

The goal was to find out the invisible factors, sources, identify patterns leading to the cause and why has there been such a sudden increase in PPD and how can we control the its drastic spread. I worked along with 4 other user experience designers for 4 months. 

Our initial research phase was to discover more about postpartum depression, who it affects and how it has spread around the world. The below video represents our findings based on secondary research.

Even though the focus of our study was North America, we plotted postpartum depression around the world to understand and identify how PPD spread. PPD seemed more prominent in dark skinned women, women with prior mental health history and in nuclear families who have no close relatives or extra help during this stressful time of motherhood.

By researching about postpartum depression through time, we found that women who experienced mental health issues during pregnancy in the past  were called "Witches" and were abandoned. This pattern exists even today. In Europe, women with PPD are separated from the child, causing women to hide under the blanket and suffer in isolation. PPD is said to go away once talked about and on undergoing therapy. But due to the norms set, women are hesitating to talk and the fear of separation from the child is causing burial of PPD. PPD if not treated can develop into a stage of psychosis which is very severe and harmful for both the mother and baby. 

We then studied the existing initiatives, support groups and their work to understand how they are helping families affected by postpartum depression. A marketing campaign called Silence Sucks had gone virally wrong as the pictures used were very disturbing. Most women felt that the campaign was being insensitive to their feelings. Other initiatives provided support to the women with PPD by giving them free giveaways to make them feel good about themselves. Overall, through this study we realised that it is necessary to keep in mind the mental state of the family and empathise with them. Also, the campaign didn't reach all the masses, like the rural areas and people below the poverty line could not access these campaigns.

We deconstructed Motherhood by mapping the value system of the mother. The various factors, elements that played a role in her life during the stage of becoming a mother was mapped to understand the relations and connections. This map also involved her state of mind when she was going through PPD. The below map show the major ingredients that play a role during PPD. All the ingredients were pulled of from interviewing mothers and studying case studies about PPD.

After continuous observations, interviews, listening to stories through podcasts and videos of women of different ethnicities, we moved on to create a persona. In order to respect the privacy of individuals who participated in the study, the names and content of our study has been kept confidential. All names in this case study are fictional and do not correspond to the individuals interviewed.

From the data we gathered, we conducted multiple brainstorming sessions to come up with various solutions. 

Our major Aha moments were when we realised the following :

1. Women are not aware of postpartum depression and are lost due to the multiple changes happening around them. 

2. The social stigma associated with motherhood over the ages needs to be debunked and this needs to happen by discarding the perfect picture of motherhood. 

During this stage, our goal was:

1. Come up with a solution that would reach all masses.

2. Technology is not the solution to all problems and we need to focus on how big an impact we can make through our proposal to connect with the individuals affected.

3. Spread awareness not only to women but to educate all individuals about postpartum depression.

The below are three conceptual solutions proposed. The intention of not having just one solution was that a wicked problem such as this needs to be addressed in all forms so that it can be tackled. The logo gives an universal representation to this issue.                   

The #popPPDaway challenge was to encourage women to talk and form a community to fight this together. It is to show motherhood unplugged and also to spread awareness.

In order to reach the common masses, the expressions wall would be setup in all regions of the country where the crowd would come to like hospitals, malls, community centres and so on. 

This project was a very challenging project as it was very difficult to get first hand primary information about post partum depression. Also, it being a very sensitive issue to talk about we had to be very careful while conducting the research. As a designer, it was a great learning as we got to empathise and take on a wicked challenge first hand. Through this study, my major takeaway would be to always analyse the unintended consequences of a solution even though the intention would be different. I feel this is trait is crucial for all designers to have inorder to avoid mishaps with their designs.