Category Archives: public awareness

Postpartum Voice of the Week: Life as we knew it

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Background "hand tag" stock photo from http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1241062

 

“If you are going through hell, keep going.”

Winston Churchill

If ever there were a post to embody the sentiment expressed by Sir Winston Churchill, this would be the one.

Seemingly trapped in a fox hole with guilt bombs convening on her very position, this author gets honest and raw about her experience. She begins to dream of death just to get some rest from all the guilt swirling around her. To make matters worse, her fox hole begins to crumble around her.

“I had heard whisperings of “Mothers Guilt”. I never knew what it meant. I thought it went along the lines of “my kid will need therapy because of me!” – but I never thought of Mothers Guilt being a 24 hours a day 7 days a week guilt thing.”

For many, many, many Postpartum mothers, guilt IS a persistent factor in our experience. We are sometimes swallowed whole by guilt even beyond the already difficult symptoms of Anxiety, OCD, Depression, or Psychosis. Guilt exacerbates the pain we carry inside our heart. We have an adorable child. A healthy child. A child who is very much wanted and loved. And yet… yet.. here we are. Trapped. In hell. With guilt bombs firing at us from every direction. It’s our Normandy beach.

Now go. Read this week’s Postpartum Voice of the Week.

Don’t forget to submit your own posts for consideration. You have until Tuesday night!

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5 Postpartum Survival Tips from a Zombie Apocalypse

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Zombie: [zom-bee] n. 1. a person who is or appears to be lifeless, apathetic, or totally lacking in independent judgment; automaton

Who among us has not at one time or another felt as if we were a Zombie? Going through life trapped in repetitive motions, functioning because we had to instead of so desiring to function? Come on.. raise your hands!

New mothers are at particular risk for this – new dads too!

Bringing a little creature into your life is enough to suck the very life blood from your own veins. It’s as if you’ve been infected – it’s your very own Baby Apocalypse!

Nursing, feeding, crying, fussing, playing, mixed up nights and days, toss in a Postpartum Mood Disorder for good measure and you’re totally screwed in no time.

Just as with Zombies, many humans have their own theories about Postpartum Mood & Anxiety Disorders. Some people believe they exist. Others don’t think they exist at all. Those who do believe in PMAD’s are likely to prepare for a second round with them while those who do not believe in them choose not to prepare at all. It’s this population I worry about the most.

A few things you need to know about fighting off a Postpartum Apocalypse:

1) Educate yourself. Get intimate with the signs and symptoms of all of the disorders on the spectrum. Know what it looks like to have Postpartum OCD vs. Posptartum Psychosis. What does Postpartum Depression look like to someone else? What about Postpartum Anxiety or BiPolar? Which one is an imperative medical emergency? (BTW, any of them are an imperative medical emergency IF mom is suicidal and/or threatening harm to others – but Postpartum Psychosis is ALWAYS a medical emergency!)

2) Pull together several sources of personal support. Just as in fending off Zombies, there is strength in numbers. Find a support group. For you, this may be your parents, your partner’s parents, leaders from your church or center of faith, a local support group specifically for Postpartum Mamas or you may find something online like the Online PPD Support Page, #PPDChat, or iVillage’s Postpartum & Pregnancy Depression Message Board. Build up your arsenal of support early. The stronger your support system is, the better chance you have at fighting back and getting ahead of the coming waves.

3) Call in the Army. Well, not literally. In your case, the Army will be your physicians, your Therapist, your Psychiatrist, Psychologist, Midwife, Herbalist, Pediatrician, IBCLC, anyone involved in care for YOU or your baby. These professionals are trained and know just how to zap that depression. If you have these folks on you stand a much better chance of really obliterating the Postpartum Zombification heading your way. If you need help locating an ever-growing group of knowldgeable professionals, let me know. I’ll be happy to help.

4) Don’t stay home. Get out. Get moving .Believe it or not, research was actually done in regards to a popular Zombie movie – Night of the Living Dead. Their conclusion? Quarantine was riskier than Offensive responsive behavior. I know, my jaw dropped too. Get out. Walk. Go to the library. The local track. A zoo, museum, local fitness center. I found out I can join a public county gym for just $60/year. Guess what I’ll be doing in January? Shaking my groove thing around their track, on their elliptical’s, and using their weight machines.

5) Be an active participant in your recovery. Simply sitting on a therapist’s couch or in their office will not heal you. Neither will staring at a bottle of prescription medication or herbal supplements. You have to share your thoughts, experiences with your healthcare professionals and close support people. Twiddling thumbs is not what gets the Zombies off the front porch. It lets them in them in the front door. You might as well serve Sweet Tea and Cocktail Weenies for crying out loud. Skipping this important step is not recommended at all.

With a little bit of preparation, you too can strengthen the your survival of and recovery from an attack of a Postpartum Mood Disorder.

We won’t leave you all alone out there. We promise.

(This post inspired via Twitter discussion with @BrerMatt and @herbadmother. I’d like to thank the poor innocent spider who may have lost his life at the hand of @herbadmother in order to lead us to this post.)

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Postpartum Voice of the Week: Label me and put me in a box

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I received the following via email yesterday. I read it as my son ate his lunch. I let it marinate overnight. This morning I decided I couldn’t keep it to myself. So I emailed the author and asked for permission to share her words with you, dear readers. Her words are powerful, descriptive, and captivating. Here’s a mom who had a glowing first pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. The second time around things did not go quite so well. Here is her story in her words.

 

This is my story.

 

Label me and put me in a box. Then tell me how to get out of it…

That is all I am asking

Please … PPD is killing me from the inside out…

Getting Pregnant, with my first little girl was easy; I got pregnant so quick I could not believe it. I had the most wonderful experience being pregnant with her. My hair was glowing; my face was rosy; I was able to exercise right up until her birth and only gained 23 pounds.

Carsen came into this world flawless and was absolutely beautiful. I felt that connection right off and was enamored by her. She was everything, she was my little mini me.

Eighteen months later we decided to try again. We knew we wanted one more whether it be a boy or girl. We couldn’t care less as long as she/he was healthy.

I was never thinking about Postpartum; it never crossed my mind. I just knew it was going to be just as easy as the first, no doubt.

Wow, was I wrong.

Started trying in December of 2007 and every month without fail I got my period up until June 2008. So me being a worrier thought the worst and went to my OBGYN.

She suggested I try fertility pills. So I tracked my cycle and tried it and I thought it had worked the first month but did not and I got my period again… By the middle of August I was exhausted from worrying and not being pregnant.

It was not until my mother told me “Janna you are so blessed, you had a wonderful pregnancy and you have a healthy daughter maybe that is what God intended for you.” It hit me and I just let it go and gave it to GOD. If I was never meant to have another child I was happy and blessed.

Then in November my period was late, but I was not even thinking about it; so on a whim I took a pregnancy test and It was positive. We were elated.

This was the beginning of my descent…

Because the election was going on, that was all that was on TV and I kept hearing about and seeing Sarah Palin’s son who had Down syndrome. Well my anxiety kicked in and I worried myself to death that the baby might have DS.

I had a CVS test done in January 2009. Everything came back normal and we found out early on we were having another little girl, we had already picked out name a year and a half ago; Marley after Bob Marley. What a relief…? No…

The next month I was upset because we were living in this little town home with no room. I spoke with my husband and we decided to put our home on the market in the worst economy since the 80’s.

I stressed myself out so much, because we could not sell our home yet we had to keep it so clean all the time and my poor sweet daughter could not play with her toys like she wanted because mommy was so scared she would run into the walls and make a mark.

We spent so much money on staging and getting the place fixed up to sell. We were still in new construction and competing with builder prices and being the smallest town home in the neighborhood was hell………

I would go to bed crying myself to sleep calling my mom and brother all the time… I did not realize how much stress I was putting on myself or my baby until I put myself into preterm labor.

I was in the hospital for six days in June of 2009……

My husband was another story.

We had been having problems since January of 09. I was dishonest with him on something and finally came clean and he was just being a jerk to me about going into pre term labor; saying I did it on purpose so he could not go to Bonnaroo (it’s a hippy thing). He went four days without speaking to me.

On top of everything else, I was gaining so much weight with her, I put on 50 pounds with her and began hating myself………daily I would look in the mirror and want to puke from the sight of my reflection………

I could not be on my feet for very long so I had to lie in the bed and watch hours of crap on TV ……… I was miserable and she was kicking me up in my rib cage so I was in pain as well…… I wanted her OUT OF ME……and during all of this we were having several showings on our home…

I look back now and think why didn’t we take this stupid thing off the market… Nevertheless, I was on a mission; I wanted out of that place.

After sitting for 45 days I was angry at my home; I was finding things to dislike about it everyday… I wanted out of that place and it was about to get worse.

Finally on July 16th Marley was born, healthy but had two birthmarks at the time both on her leg… It bothered me but not too much then.

Came home from the hospital and was on a high; however she cried all the time and we knew she cried way more than our first born. At first it was ok…… tried to breast feed plus take care of a 3 year old…… some women can; I cannot……I was not made to be super mom…… We barely slept, I was up every 2-3 hours pumping and feeding, and during the day Marley would not take naps and she cried incessantly………

Finally in August the doctors told us she had Colic. I pumped until September of 09 and finally let my boobs dry up……very painful and hard to do…

Still during all of this I was showing the house and handling a colicky baby and 3 year old… I would sit at home with Marley and stare at the walls because I was too afraid to go anywhere because she had this horrible cry that would not stop.

I was embarrassed by her for crying and she had developed two strawberries; one on top of her head and one on her forehead for all to see…

I could not stand them, did not take pictures of her. I was worried people were staring at it and also I was irritated when people would ask me what it was and say “ I hope it goes away….”

I hated it… Then I decided I wanted to start losing the 50 pounds I had put on while I was pregnant so I had a brilliant idea of starting on Phenteremine and also cutting my Zoloft in half because I felt I did not need it………

Realizing I just gave birth less than 2 months prior… BIG MISTAKE…

At that point I knew something was different with me emotionally. I was yelling at the pharmacists and crying for no reason, trying to compare myself to all the moms who looked great right after giving birth, and hating myself and my body…

By the end of September we finally got an offer on our house… crappy offer, but we accepted and it was SOLD; funny thing was that I was not happy about it…

I knew I was going further down emotionally… I started to not want to be around Marley as much… Her strawberry on her forehead was getting bigger and I hated it and did not like the way she looked… how horrible for a mother to have those feelings.

On top of all this, she did not stop crying she cried all of July, August, September and October… it was painful and draining… I did not feel close to her at all and was regretting even having another baby at that time.

I felt lost and lonely… My husband told me I was a horrible mother and that I couldn’t care less about both our children; I felt like I was being kicked while down for the count, my own husband was against me.

He could not understand the pain inside of me. I wanted to get in my car and drive to somewhere till the road ended and never turn back… I was scared to be left alone with both kids, I started having horrible, painful thoughts in my head, I knew they were wrong but they wouldn’t stop.

I was having continuous anxiety attacks, my primary doctor upped my dose of Zoloft and my therapist was nice but I don’t think she got the pain I was in.

Friends and Family started to notice that I was crying from the drop of a hat and just staring off into space for no reason… I could not sleep … Thank God I had Ambien at the time because I would have been committed and not voluntarily… And to top it all off I was the maid of honor for my best friend’s wedding in October… I was running on empty…

Oct 24th 2009, My best friend got married, I looked like an overweight smurf…it was horrific. I did not smile or even try to help my best friend get ready, I could not concentrate, I knew I was at the top of the hill and after that wedding I fell and fell hard.

Driving home from the wedding I had my first anxiety attack… I felt like my skin was turning inside out. Thoughts encompassed me. I was actually on the verge of insanity (at least I thought)… what the hell was wrong with me?

I walked in the door and my husband was like “What is wrong with you?” I tore my 300.00 bridesmaid dress off and threw it in the trash…… I could not sit down, I was sweating, I was crying, I was shaking. I was confused; I didn’t know what was going on with me. My husband was just sitting there watching me pace back and forth with this disgusted look on his face.

That night I took an Ambien, I fell asleep but at 1.00am I woke up in a sheer panic… I could not sleep; my heart was beating out of my chest… Fears of my children were surfacing all around… I walked up and down the stairs, Marley started crying and I started to hate her for that… why does she always need something!!!!!!! It was consuming me.

I was irritated all the time, I had no patience what so ever; feared everything. Feared something bad would happen; what if I dropped her, what if I got in a wreck and she was in the car, what if I lost control? It was the scariest feeling in the world. Where did it come from?

What came and took all my confidence away from me and made me so frightened of being alone with my children or not being fit enough to be their mom, of feeling extreme guilt because I felt as if I would never ever get out of this box I was shoved into.

I was in sheer panic, I felt ashamed for feeling this way, I felt alone and afraid because my husband was not understanding at all. I had no one, absolutely no one who understood and that was the scariest thing.

I finally plucked up the courage to call my mother in law and all I said was “I can’t do it, something is wrong with me, I need help.” It was the hardest thing I have ever done. I had to openly admit that I was incapable of being a mom.

I was having such bad anxiety that I could not do anything, and the more the anxiety the worse my derealization got. The derealization is another story in itself. I could not go anywhere or be seen by anyone other than family members. It was debilitating. My sister in law came over to help me for the rest of the week.

My husband was still very much a cause of my anxiety because of his lack of concern or compassion. I could not go to work; I could not function… It took everything I had to get up; not because I was not getting enough sleep but because I was so scared and my anxiety was through the roof.

I tried to find help by searching the internet and seeing what was out there and it scared the hell out of me… The internet can be more of an enemy than a friend… Time was actually standing still.

I felt like I was finally feeling a little better and getting stronger but knew deep down I was still scared to be alone with the children, not because I would hurt them but because I felt as if I was incompetent as a mother and I would never be able to be a great mom and raise them like I saw other people do.

I was seeing a therapist but she did not have children and did not truly understand how I felt… I felt lost and alone in this big city…

I woke up each morning welcomed with fear and anxiety. My mom who was 6 hours away could only do so much over the phone… I was getting worse and worse…

I did not feel this medication was helping me. The anxiety was getting to be too much and I was falling into a depression…

I felt ashamed; I prayed to GOD every two seconds to help me through the minute, the hour, the day, and the week, “Please Lord let me get through this… I will not be able to live anymore if I have to continue to feel and think this way……”

I have never in my life thought about suicide, but I was thinking that if I cannot escape this than why even exist… I could just take a bottle of my sleeping pills and make all this pain go away… My daughters would be better off without me, everyone would be better off…

Of course looking back now I know that was selfish and horrible, but when you are at such a low point in your life; let’s just say I understand.

Your mind is the most powerful thing and it can play such horrible tricks on you.

December 3rd I was admitted to hospital for Postpartum Depression and Anxiety.

I have actually for the first time in my life reached the absolute bottom. No light exists, I feel like a pariah…I don’t belong but I do belong. I need help and I am getting help. I requested to stay longer so I could attend every group therapy session and all the classes. If I was here than damnit I was going to give it all I got, no matter how hard it is…

I have made a recovery.

I still have my moments of anxiety, and I lost my confidence during all of this… I used to be able to do anything and now some things just scare me… but with the help of the best psychiatrist in the world and my wonderful therapist I am a million times better than I was back in December of 2009.

My PPD started in September-October 2009 and it took me until Feb-March 2010 to start feeling like myself again…

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Postpartum Voice of the Week: Please Don’t Take My Sunshine Away: My PPD Experience

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Earlier this week, a fellow member of Twitter messaged a group of us to say she had recently written her story as part of her recovery. She wanted to share it but did not know where to start. I responded and offered her space at my blog. Later that morning, I had her story in my email. Then my week happened. Pediatric appointment with my 4 year old, my 6 year old coming home from school two days in a row and then insomnia hit. I finally got to reading her story and immediately wanted to publish it. I did not want to wait until Thursday. I love the way she breaks down lyrics from “Please don’t take my sunshine away” and writes her story. The story unfolds and unfurls as you feel her frustration, her desperate need to heal. I found myself nodding my head and cheering along with her once life begins to return.

If these words touch you as much as they have touched me and you would like to reach out to her, please leave a message in the comments. I’ll make sure she gets them.

She has asked to remain anonymous for this post and I am respecting this request.

Without further ado, I will step aside and let you read her words.

Update: The author of this post has left a comment and I have verified her desire to share her identity. Her name is Sarah. If you want to reach her, you can do so by sending her mail here: sem55(@)georgetown(dot)edu

She left the following in the comments:

I am the author of this story… what a difference a few months makes. When I wrote this I felt stronger, but still ashamed. My name is Sarah and I have PPD and I AM a great Mom! Thank you to all of the courageous women out there who have reached out to me to share their strength. I only hope I can return a fraction of the support I have received to someone who stumbles upon my story. Thank you Lauren for the opportunity to share, and for all you do for moms!

Thank YOU, Sarah, for revealing yourself. And Kudos to you for taking such a huge step in owning your experience. It’s a HUGE step.

And now, here are SARAH’S words.

 

You are my sunshine

The second you become a mother you are transformed. Your purpose, your dreams and your complete identity change. My son has taught me how to live, love and grow in ways I could have never understood before. His very being keeps me going and give me purpose. It is a love like no other.

My only sunshine

After nearly three years of trying to get pregnant, including an ectopic pregnancy, surgery and infertility, in June of 2009 I successfully conceived. I didn’t allow myself to get too excited or attached while I went for weekly blood draws and ultrasounds to monitor my early pregnancy. As the first trimester passed and we saw our tiny bean grow into a perfectly formed tiny baby, the hope in me stirred and I began letting myself feel joy. Anxiety continued, however, as I underwent frequent fetal echocardiograms to evaluate the baby for a heart condition he was at risk of developing. The second trimester came and went and his heart remained perfect; we were in the clear. At 32 weeks, I started having contractions, thus followed two hospital visits for pre-term labor. At home, I remained on bedrest, and luckily made it to the 37th week. My labor was quick and my beautiful baby boy A .N. was born perfect and healthy at 6 lb 1 oz. I felt the biggest relief in my life when I saw my newborn baby. This joy dissolved quickly when the OB began the repairs. I began feeling very funny. I was trying to communicate how weird I was feeling when I found I was unable to speak. Ringing in my ears drowned out the sounds and I began to slip into unconsciousness. This is it, I thought. My baby was born healthy, but the price I am paying for it is to die in childbirth. The next thing I knew I was waking up on the Mother-Baby Unit. The nurses there cheerfully told me I had experienced lidocaine toxicity and my baby was with my husband in the nursery. I ached to see his face and hold his perfect body. When they returned, I instantly felt a jolt of joy and energy as I acquainted myself with my new family.

Two days later we were discharged and sent home as a new family of three. Our families had camped out at our house but we sent them home to have the space and room to figure out what we were doing. The next few days were quiet, but things did not feel right with the baby. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong with him. My milk came in late and A became dehydrated and difficult to arouse. After that crisis resolved, we received a concerned call from the pediatrician. The results from A’s metabolic screen were positive for a rare but potentially fatal disease. They cautioned us that there are many cases of false positives, but I went into panic mode. We stayed on alert night and day to watch him breathe at all times. We had to wait for a week for the news that it was an error, A was fine.

You make me happy when skies are grey

The weeks after were full of relief, bliss and love. I managed through the marathon feedings and fell more in love with my son each day. Parenting seemed to come naturally to my husband. I finally had everything I dreamed of. Then at 11 weeks, A did a remarkable thing, he slept through the night. Usually a cause for celebration, this milestone marked the beginning of my downfall. I felt as though this gift I had dreamed of for so long was somehow a mirage and could be taken from me at any moment. The lines between fear and reality became blurred. First I stopped being able to sleep, feeling the need to rest my hand on the baby’s chest feeling it’s reassuring rise and fall. I started having the most disturbing images in my head. These horrifying images tortured me relentlessly. I felt constantly nervous and on edge. I felt so agitated I couldn’t keep my body still, when I lay in bed to rest my legs wouldn’t stop moving. I had the most intense feeling that sometime terrible was about to happen to A. Something that I had to stop. Soon I was having stomach problems, not being able to keep anything down and then being unable to force myself to eat. I started going days straight without sleeping. I stopped eating solid foods, losing over 20 lbs. in a month. I became weak and fragile. I began having the images coupled with horrifying phrases in my head. All involved seeing my baby harmed. I started having urges to do things like bang my head on the shower wall to stop them. These urges were like the most intense itch you know you should not scratch. I felt if I didn’t give in to them, I would jump out of my skin or
explode. During the day, I was having panic attacks where I would feel as though I was dying; my arms would go numb, my heart would race, I would become sick to my stomach and feel paralyzed. At night, with the baby and my husband tucked safely in bed, I began having urges to disappear. I wondered how fast I could pack everything up and drive off before they awoke. I thought if I disappeared, my baby would be able to grow and thrive and would be better off without me. My husband did not understand at all what was going on and became very angry at me. We began constantly fighting. I had to ask him to stay home from work or leave work numerous times because I didn’t feel safe alone with the baby. June came and his birthday and father’s day came and went and I found myself unable to get out of bed. I wondered if I was dying or losing my mind. I didn’t want to live anymore. I pictured milestones in A’s life without me present. I became obsessed with planning A’s birthday party because I had the distinct feeling that I wouldn’t be around by then. The day came when I couldn’t take another second. That was when I reached out to my Mom.

You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you

I always wanted to get better. For A, for our family. But help seemed so hard to find. Living in X, I had isolated myself. I didn’t want anyone to know what a bad mother I was so I tried to stop visitors and kept phone calls brief. I had been refusing to take the medications I needed because they were not compatible with nursing. Having to suddenly wean my baby was like a final blow of failure to me. After my urgent phone call to my Mom, she left work in the middle of the day without packing a thing, got on 95 and talked to me on the phone until she arrived 3 hours later. She took me to the midwife, who sent me to the ER to be admitted. Because I told them I had no imminent plans to kill myself, they wouldn’t admit me. They gave me sleeping pills and the address of an urgent care psych center. It turns out the place was a partial-hospitalization program, which my insurance did not cover and would require me
to be away from A during the day. I felt helpless and desperate. I didn’t have any hope of anyone being able to help me. I was taking the medication, but it didn’t seem to be doing
anything for me. Things escalated at home with my husband and I really feared hurting myself, so I packed our stuff and we left for Y.

After my Mom and my sister helped me get settled in Y with A, things started to turn around. I moved in with my sister who was a huge support to me. There was family and friends around me constantly. I had the help I needed to care for A while taking care of myself. I sought help at a local center devoted to post partum mood disorders and began to see a psychiatrist and therapist regularly. I was given a name for what I was going through: Post-Partum OCD. I joined a local support group that meets monthly and I met the most amazing and inspiring women who really get it and have been there. Their strength was contagious. I starting believing that I could get better. The thoughts in my head became more fleeting. I felt more connected with my son. I still had some panic attacks where I felt myself regressing. Dark thoughts would again invade my brain. Sometimes I felt like I wasn’t getting better at all and there was no point to struggling through this. But I learned to reach out to those who cared about me when I felt this way. During my darkest days the phrase “this will not end well” would repeat itself in my head, this mantra was now replaced by “this too shall pass.”

Please don’t take my sunshine away

Time, therapy and medication have given me my life back. My recovery has been full of ups and downs, good and bad days. I am still working on mending relationships. But as the Autumn came, I felt my old self emerge. I will never be the person I was before I had a child, but I am a stronger, wiser woman. I have found I am strong enough to make it on my own, but that the support of others is essential. I am learning to enjoy the moments without obsessing about what will come next. I am learning to let go of complete control and let my son explore and experience with my guidance. It’s a new way of living, and it’s very freeing. I am able to enjoy every day with A. He amazes me on a daily basis. I don’t know what challenges or heartaches I might face in the future, but now I am healthy and strong enough to face them head-on. And if I’m not, I will still be ok because of the support system I have. And in February, I will be at my son’s first birthday party, celebrating his year of thriving and mine of survival.

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The Great Divide: Researchers, Clinicians, Medical Professionals, Peer Support Advocates, Struggling Patients

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All across the globe, there are Researchers dedicating their lives to exploring all aspects of Postpartum Mood Disorders. Many of these researchers work in clinics, some are purely academic, and others review the research of others and present a compilation to conclude results.

Clinicians (for our purposes here) are trained in a variety of professions from therapists to psychiatrists to psychologists. These are the professionals on the front line. Some may be trained specifically in Postpartum Mood & Anxiety Disorders while others may be largely unware of the nuances of these conditions.

Medical Professionals often see Postpartum Women prior to a Clinician is involved. These are General Pracitioners, Family Practice doctors, Pediatricians, Obstetricians, Midwives in some areas, ER doctors, nurses, etc. These professionals again, may or may not have additional specific training in Postpartum Mood & Anxiety Disorders yet it is highly unlikely they are familiar at all with the nuances involved.

Peer Support Advocates are in the trenches. These may be made up of survivors, passionate and informed Clinicians, nurses, pediatricians, IBCLC’s, doulas, and a number of other people various walks of life. They become Peer Support Advocates for various reasons but largely due to personal experience from either a lived experience or the experience of a loved one.

Struggling Patients are in the thick of a Postpartum Mood & Anxiety Disorder, often navigating the system for the very first time. Many of them have never had a mental illness before giving birth or pregnancy. They are not familiar with their rights, the issue of medication, diagnosis, follow-through, or where to turn for help. They are filled with guilt, shame, and fear. These families and patients are often afraid to speak up and reach out for help. But their voices are increasing. Yet they are still echoing into an empty cavern as they scream out for the help they so desperately need.

Peer Support Advocates often are the first to hear the cry of the struggling patients. We work with them to find knowledgeable support in their locale. While the possibility of connecting these patients with knowledgeable or compassionate care is increasing, often times, we find ourselves up against a brick wall riddled with barriers to treatment. The biggest barrier is lack of knowledgeable local referrals. Primary referral in many areas is often to an uninformed or untrained Medical Professional.

An uninformed Medical Professional may do more harm than good with a Postpartum patient. He or she may erroneously take the DSM guidelines to heart, refusing to acknowledge a Postpartum Mood Disorder if the patient had her baby more than four weeks prior to presenting with symptoms. Nevermind that the APA itself admonishes the usage of the DSM in such a manner. If the non-mental health trained Medical Professional is informed, then the patient may find herself ushered higher up the ladder into the office of a professional Clinician trained to deal with psychiatric illness and disorders.

Clinicians are not always trained in Postpartum Mood & Anxiety Disorders. Therefore, it’s important for the patient to know what questions to ask when making an appointment with a specialist in the psychiatric field when seeking help for a PMAD. Questions like “Have you been trained in Perinatal Mood Disorders?” or “By whom have you been trained?” or “How long has it been since you were trained?” or “What is your approach to treating PMADs?” are all excellent questions someone who has been trained in Perinatal Mood Disorders would be comfortable in answering. A good clinician will answer honestly that he/she has not been trained but is willing to learn. He/She should offer her viewpoint on treatment and not force you into accepting their way or the highway. A good (and informed) clinician will also keep up with the latest research regarding PMADs.

Researchers are often not in the field with patients. On rare occasion they are clinicians themselves. Many are academic researchers. These researchers study everything from epidmeology to treatment to type of Perintal Mood Disorder, to risk factors, to contributing factors, birth trauma, etc. The issue with Researchers comes in when their research is manipulated, funded by Pharmaceutical companies, involves retro-data, a small data group, or a limited field in which some factors are not viable simply because the size of the group or source of the group is inherently flawed or for some other various reason. This is not to say that all research should be thrown out the window. It shouldn’t be at all. BUT it is important to be able to distill the research with a keen eye and apply some common sense to the outcome.

This is where Clinicians, Medical Professionals, and Peer Suppport Advocates come into play. Anyone trained or in contact with experts in the field of Perinatal Mood Disorders will be able to help you recover. Even those not well-trained but well-meaning and open-minded will be able to help you. If your Clinician, Medical Professional and Peer Support Advocate is willing to help formulate (or find) help which fits your personal lifestyle and belief system, your chances of recovery increase. But if you have a Clinician, Medical Professional or Peer Support Advocate who is closed off to certain avenues of treatment due to a certain aspect of your own life such as breastfeeding, other children, pregnancy, etc, then you may want to continue looking for help elsewhere.

In light of the new guidelines in the DSM-5 which will keep the Postpartun Depression Identifier at 4 weeks, we need to work to get those involved in care for Postpartum Women struggling with disorders talking with each other instead of at each other or indirectly with each other via research, peer support survivors, and trainers, etc. But how do we do this?

How do we get the researcher to share with the Clinician their goals, interests, and conclusions? How do we then get the Clincian to spark interest in the Medical non-specialist Practioner to learn about Perinatal Mood & Anxiety Disorders? Then how do we plug in the Peer Advocate and the patient? How do we open the discussion between Professional, Peer Advocate, and patient? How do we keep the communication going once it’s started? What will it take? How many more tragedies must we endure before everyone involved is ready to talk and on the same page?

Enough is enough. We need to stop talking at each other, around each other, to each other and instead talk WITH each other. Until we do, innocent women, children, and families will continue to struggle, suffer, and possibly even die. I am not willing to let that happen. Are you?

Speak up. Say something. EVERY Word makes a difference. Every.Word.

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