What if I put my newborn in the sink to bathe him, the garbage disposal turns on, and devours his little feet? What if his swing seatbelt gets unhooked and he hits floor? What if my baby is in a rear-facing carseat and he starts to choke? What if he pushes his nose too close to me while he is nursing? On and on the list went inside my head for months and months.
When I wasn’t imagining horrific infantile accidents, I stared at my baby, wondering what I was supposed to do to with him. I nursed him, changed his diaper, dressed him in lots of nauseating powder blue outfits, and, occasionally, bathed him when I could get over my anxiety of him drowning in the tub or being eaten by the garbage disposal in the sink. (He developed cradle cap due to the lack of baths but no one ever asked me why I wasn’t bathing him.) As I went through the motions all alone, I didn’t really feel any more affection for him than I had for my Cabbage Patch dolls that I took care of as a child.
I experienced nothing like the bond that I witnessed between my husband and our baby. In the hospital, our baby was inconsolable. The loudest crying baby in the maternity ward, ensuring no woman or child was getting any sleep that weekend. After a nurse threatened to take our baby away to give him a bottle and make him stop crying, paternal instinct took over. My husband picked up our screaming baby, flipped him over and jostled him into the airplane hold, placing my baby’s abdomen on his forearm. He then two-stepped around the hospital room to only the beat of new fatherhood until our baby fell asleep in his arms.
There was no dancing for me or any other type of maternal ritual that would celebrate the love of my new child. Dread not joy greeted me each morning. This is not what I thought motherhood was supposed to be like. Wasn’t motherhood supposed to be like the Luvs diaper commercial? The one where a smiling cherubic baby, clad in only a diaper, rolls in the grass while his gleeful mom, who happened to successfully shed all the baby weight, tickles his belly while simultaneously hanging clothes on the line.
Not being joyful about new motherhood made question if every new mother felt like this and suppressed it or if I was completely insane.I was wrong on both accounts. I wasn’t experiencing normality or insanity. I had a clear case of postpartum depression that went unacknowledged, undiagnosed and untreated. Arrogance not ignorance prohibited me from seeking treatment. Sure, I knew what postpartum depression was. The hospital sent me home with stacks and stacks of paper defining it, explaining it, justifying and outlining treatment. I comprehended the content, but could not acknowledge my own case. I was educated and married. My baby was wanted, and I was a stay-at-home mom. I was too prepared, too smart, too loving, and too concerned to be an inflicted woman. No matter how all the literature attempts normalize postpartum depression and deemphasize the shame; the hyper-attention given it the syndrome by doctors, the media and court system sensationalizes postpartum depression into shameful and shame-inducing aberration.
Shame is cold and lonely. I had no one to turn –too scared to seek medical attention and too embarrassed to tell family members. I couldn’t tell my husband because I didn’t want to disappoint him or have him be afraid to leave me alone with our baby. I couldn’t go to either one of my son’s grandmothers. After more than 30 years of giving birth to her last child, my mother still exhibits all the symptoms of postpartum depression and has never made an emotional connection with her children. My husband’s mother is a baby whisperer. She never took formal training, but she just intuitively knows everything there is to know about childrearing and would feel perfectly justified in editing the books of Brazelton, Spock, and Sears. She would never be able to understand why a mother wouldn’t bond with her baby instantly.
So, I was on my own. I just waited it out and went through the motions for weeks. Eventually, things started to get better. A major breakthrough happened when my baby was about 5 weeks old, and he fell asleep on my chest. He stayed there for hours, and I just watched him breathe. Then, a few days later, I started reading to him. We read Dissemination by Jacques Derrida. We skipped Mother Goose and went straight to Deconstructionism. Didn’t matter what I was reading to him; he was hearing his mother’s voice.
Our progress continued. I worried less. He cried less. He started to smile. I started to smile. Eventually, I over came my fear of driving and a joined a local chapter of the International MOMS Club, an organization designed for moms to support each other through fun scheduled activities. (This is organization is not specifically for postpartum depression, but does provide great opportunities to meet other moms who have had similar experiences).
The postpartum depression faded. I survived, my child survived and having endured such challenge made my bond with my baby stronger. New motherhood should not be an emotionally lonely time for any woman.
Recent studies have shown that postpartum depression is not as difficult to diagnose as once believed. Using only three questions doctors can know detect postpartum depression and these questions don’t have the negative stigma of crying, sleeplessness, and thoughts of harming self or others. Excessive anxiety seems to be a strong indicator and these questions zero in on the primary symptom: This is what the test looks like:
1. I have blamed myself unnecessarily when things went wrong.
a. Yes, most of the time — 3
b. Yes, some of the time — 2
c. Not very often — 1
d. No, never — 0
2. I have been anxious or worried for no good reason.
a. Yes, very often — 3
b. Yes, sometimes — 2
c. Hardly ever — 1
d. No, not at all — 0
3. I have felt scared or panicky for no very good reason.
a. Yes, quite a lot — 3
b. Yes, sometimes — 2
c. No, not much — 1
d. No, not at all — 0
With postpartum depression being so easily recognizable now, doctors need to be more proactive in detecting the symptoms. Handing out a bunch of papers is not enough and waiting six weeks for the mother’s follow-up exam could be too late to ask these questions. A phone appointment or an in-person appointment should be arranged with the first one to three weeks to do a preliminary screening and then another screening could occur in six weeks.
With the current state of healthcare, doctors are not likely to show this level of concern on their own; therefore, legislation should be proposed that would require either the hospital or primary doctor to screen every new mother for postpartum depression. Spending a little time on legislation could potentially save lives and keep the postpartum depression defense out of the court system.
Until the medical community or the government becomes more involved, the responsibility falls on mothers to self-diagnose and seek treatment. The best option is acquire assistance from a medical care provider, but there are some online resources to help with diagnosis and support:
Postpartum Support International
http://postpartum.net/
Postpartum Support Online
http://www.ppdsupportpage.com/
Postpartum Awareness
http://www.ppdsupport.org/
