Depression or Normal Grief After Pregnancy Loss?

Many studies have found that there is an increased risk of developing clinical depression or anxiety after a miscarriage or stillbirth. This likely comes as no surprise to anyone who has lost a pregnancy. The grief can be intense, affecting you for many months or sometimes even years after the loss, and it is perfectly okay and normal to grieve deeply.

But where's the line between grief and depression? The two often have identical symptoms, and it can be hard for an outside observer to determine what is grief and what is depression. Even researchers don't seem to completely agree on where to draw the line.

I tend to think that the judgment is individual. It is normal to grieve, but if you feel that your grief is affecting your life in a major way for an extended period of time, maybe you also have depression that could benefit from counseling or other treatment. But it is really hard to say and people may not always be aware that they have developed depression. Then again, if you think you might be depressed, then that by itself could be an indication that counseling might help. It is a hard issue to discuss though, because on one hand I think it is important that people not feel they need to pathologize their normal feelings of grief. But on the other hand, it is also important that people who are truly depressed and really do need help not feel that they need to suck it up and suffer in silence just because it is normal to feel sad.

What do you think? Where is the line between normal grief and depression that would benefit from outside assistance? I would definitely appreciate hearing your thoughts on this issue, either here or in the forum.