Post-Natal Depression challenges the expectation that it is normal to be a "happy mother." Up to 90% of new mothers experience some form of depression, but traditional medical accounts pathologize it. Arguing that many of the issues linked to post-natal depression

are social rather than biological, Nicolson sets women's own accounts alongside expert evidence, and provides a radical critique of the traditional medical and social science explanations. The book supplies a systematic feminist psychological analysis of women's experiences following

childbirth and argues that, far from being an abnormal, undesirable, pathological condition, post- natal depression is a normal, healthy response to a series of losses.