Postpartum Depression Programs Available

I have suffered from anxiety my entire life. I like to say I’m the melting pot for the assortment of issues that fall under the “anxiety disorder” hat – panic attacks, phobias, OCD, depression. You name it – I’ve experienced it. I’m not proud to admit it. It still lingers on me like soap scum and I am constantly trying to wash it off. But it is a part of me, a part of who I am whether I like it or not.

Flickr: shoebappa

Months before I became pregnant with, well, with the “blighted ovum” that preceded my son, I weaned off the antidepressant that saw me through the death of my mother. I felt fine, really…amazingly so. And I became pregnant almost immediately and then, after the miscarriage, pregnant one more time. Because of my past history of being prone to anxiety issues, I was prepared to fall into the troughs of post-partum depression. I really was. But I didn’t. I am deeply thankful for that.

I had a therapist friend mention to me once the possibility of raging hormones causing the crazy ebb and flow of chemicals in the brain. I give a lot of merit to that, for one, because after my pregnancy, many of the anxiety issues that plagued me seemed to wane, remarkably. Not all, but many.

Shortly after I gave birth to Truman, I went back to work part-time with the March of Dimes, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing birth defects, prematurity and infant mortality. Our chapter was sponsoring a multi-state conference for the infant death review, which is a depressing thought in and of itself. I sat in on one discussion – the autopsy report of the children of Andrea Yates, the Texas woman who killed her five children in June of 2001 while in the midst of postpartum depression. The autopsy photos still hang unpleasantly in my mind and I will always second-guess my decision not to walk out that conference hall.

Earlier this week my old friend Tom – we had be reunited by LinkedIn and thankfully he has forgiven me for being young and stupid when we first met years ago. He now hails from the PR offices of the University of North Carolina where there is a wealth of information for any mother to feed on. He sent me this link from the Star News featuring the University of North Carolina’s Center for Women’s Mood Disorders. It is one of the few – if not the only – in-patient programs of its kind in the country that treats women suffering from severe postpartum depression in a hospital-type setting.

According to UNC, about 10 to 15 percent of new mothers experience postpartum depression, and some fathers experience it as well. It truly is much more common than you would think, and more severe and lingering than the usual “baby blues.” Rarely, about one in every 1,000 pregnancies, a woman is diagnosed with postpartum psychosis, a most severe form of postpartum depression expressing itself with more aggravated symptoms that may involve hallucinations or delusions. Andrea Yates would fall into this category.

My good friend Hannah had a friend who took her life and that of her infant daughter because she just couldn’t cope with her depression. Hannah had no clue her friend was suffering. No one did, she said. I wonder how many people were friends with the Yates and didn’t know Andrea was in misery.

That’s just it. Depression feels wrong. It may not feel like sadness or what you think depression should feel like. It is uncomfortable and irrational, even if somewhere in your clouded mind you give it merit. And it is nothing to be ashamed of. Find your help, or find help for your friends in need. There are so many resources available for us now. Use them. Make your babies grow up to be proud. You will be thankful forever.

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