According to statistics of Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Health in 2017, more than 85% postpartum women confront postpartum depression at different degrees (Vo et. al. 2017)

 

Recently, lots of heartbreaking cases occurred, spreading a moral panic in Vietnam's society: in 2016, a young mother jumped off the bridge to commit suicide after a month of giving birth, a mother killed her 3-years-old daughter, then killed herself (VTV 2017), and in June 2017, a young mother drowned her 33-days-old baby to death. The post-investigation result indicated that the “culprits” were suffering from postpartum depression. The “culprits” are heavily stigmatised on Vietnam's social media as using PPD to justify their wrong acts; hence, people believe that the jury’s verdict should be guilty.

 

There is very few or no pathos approach in creating campaigns about PPD in Vietnam. Lucid causes nor solutions are stated on mass media to adjust the problem and educate people about the syndrome. Current education curriculum has not updated lessons about the difficulties that postpartum women have to confront and how to treat postpartum women properly.

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Vietnamese postpartum women have to practice a lot of harsh traditional postpartum rituals, which are called the ‘sitting month’: restrictive diet, minimal physical exercise and restrictive exposure to water and external weather (Thai n.d.). Those practices are believed to help prevent ailments. Moreover, postpartum women attending weddings or visiting people on Lunar New Year are taboo subjects.