(CAPITOL CIYT NOW) – Postpartum depression can have roots in pain management, according to new University of Illinois research.

“Providers are very aware of the risk of opioid addiction, and so they are hesitant to prescribe those,” said Sandraluz Lara-Cinisomo, an associate professor of health and kinesiology. Patients, she says, “want to have pain management options that are not stigmatized, that respect the cultural needs, so there is a mismatch of what is happening from the patients’ experience and the providers perspective.” 

The study was unique in that it examined the problem from both the patients’ and the providers’ perspectives.

When it comes to pain, Lara-Cinisomo says she was especially taken with what she saw in a nursing mother’s willingness to accept pain while breastfeeding her baby. “I was just fascinated by the fact that this person was willing to endure physical pain to ensure that her infant was being fed and that she saw it as a temporary thing that she had to endure.”