In this book, Kelly M. Weikle argues that exploring postpartum depression through an identity perspective offers a unique and meaningful way to advance understanding of the condition and how to support women during the postpartum period.

The author explores how postpartum depression impacted women's identities and relationships through interviews with women who experienced postpartum depression. Furthermore, the author considers how societal messages of mothering identity impacted the individual experiences of women as they faced postpartum depression. These tensions and challenges can manifest through a number of health crises, including extreme anxiety and obsessions, intrusive thoughts of escape, bouts of insomnia, and intense feelings of overwhelm and maternal failure. Although many of the chiefly observed effects are medical in nature, Weikle goes further to examine the implications of these effects on mothering identity, including the loss of control and sense of self.

By using the Communication Theory of Identity as a sensitizing framework, the author unpacks how expectations from others, close personal relationships, dominant ideologies of good motherhood, and mental health coalesce to shape the postpartum period for mothers. Women experience identity gaps as they experience postpartum depression, and through understanding how and why these gaps manifest, researchers and professionals can develop more impactful support for postpartum women.