I thought that the show on postpartum depression was so unbelievably informative. I appreciated how your guest stressed that diagnosing involves taking a closer look. I feel relieved that this issue is getting attention so that women no longer have to feel bad like it’s their “fault” or that they are “bad mothers”, but rather, a person, as your guest explained, that is recovering from giving birth with many physical and hormonal changes to deal with, not to mention a new baby to take care of. It only seems natural that one would be overwhelmed, but women, I imagine, want to seem capable as new mothers, and so they say they are fine. Great show.

Jeff Kinney credits Dennis the Menace as an influence, but do I sense the spirit of Jean Shepherd? Diary of A Wimpy Kid may not contain the hyperbole and epic language of In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, but Jeff seems to be similarly exposing the human condition in a young person’s development.

Some day Shep might get the retrospective he deserves, but I’m not holding my breath waiting since his main body of work was 21 years of one-man radio, much of which has been lost to the aether.

I was pleased to hear the show on postpartum depression. I had my dtr almost 8 years ago. I’d heard about postpartum depression, but never thought it would happen to me. Low and behold, it did. I had days were all I wanted to do was drive my car into a tree. It took me a year to seek treatment (my husband had to threaten divorce to get me into treatment). I just did not realize how bad I had gotten.
It’s unfortunate, as women we are not taught to understand that childbirth and beyond is hard (incredibly hard). Your body may go through hell and back, your hormones may never be the same, you lose intimacy with your husband, you may lose your sense of self, etc. All of this compounded with a lack of sleep is a recipe for disaster. Yes, women should be screened for post partum depression just as a women is screened for diabetes.

Two thumbs up for Jeanne Watson Driscoll. I wish she had been my OB/GYN. Post Partum depression can be such an allusive theif. It robs a mother and her baby of such precious time.
It’s great to hear more coverage on this topic. I ditto what Stacy posted. Hopefully early, and more, education will spare women the loneliness, fear, and confusion of the post partum depression experience.

Thank you!

I am glad the issue of post-partum depression is being given national voice, however I was disappointed with your treatment of the subject today. To analyze the effects and risks in a cold scientific manner is only going to perpetuate the problem. Post-partum depression needs the help of a community and a network of friends and family for support, it does not need government oversight. Do we need to add the the stress of a new mother by informing her that if she doesn’t adequately bond with her baby the child is at higher risk for underperfomance and behavior problems? After both my pregnancies I teetered on the brink of breakdown for many months. I do honestly believe that requiring me to see a professional about it would have broken me. We must find ways to support new mothers in the manner they need, not the manner that studies best support.

This doctor is right on target. Most doctors don’t listen to their patients, or if they do, tend to give a generic answer to what the patient asks or says. My feeling is that most young girls and women who think it’s some kind of status symbol to be pregnant, when the child is born, get a great big slap into reality when they find out that their life exists only to be taking care of a very dependent tiny person. Education BEFORE pregnancy should be required of every young girl, so that they get awakened from their fairy tale thoughts of what taking care of a child will be like. As for screening for post-partum depression, great idea. The tone of the show’s host was that it was intruding into the woman’s life. How about thinking of the baby instead. If a woman is suffering from PPD, she’s not going to bond well with the child, may even come to resent it and all of her time it’s consuming, and may even become neglectful, or physically abusive to the baby. Sometime, somewhere along the line, the rights and welfare of the baby must be given priority over the mother’s privacy rights in this instance. Thank God for this doctor that’s really, truly treating these women. If only there were many more like her everywhere in this country.

As I listened to your doctor’s comments on postpartum depression, I wondered how my daughter’s life might have been different if I had been tested as I lay all alone in the hospital after my daughter’s birth. I was married. My mother lived in town. My husband did not want either of our children. My mother wanted a granddaughter. No one came near me. I had been depressed since my husband began threatening to leave me a few months before – partly because I was seriously depressed before he allowed me to conceive the child my mother wanted – to go shopping for but not to hold. If I had been screened and treated, would I have been able to bond with my daughter? Would she not have threatened suicide when she was 13? Would she not have suffered from serious depression for years? Would she not have bordlerline personality disorder? She has worked hard to be well and allowed me to walk her healing journey beside her. But what if that journey could have been prevented? She is now 37 and doing well, thanks to medication and a lot of hard work – but the “what ifs” bring tears to my eyes.

Thank you for hosting Dean Ken Starr’s views about the necessity of defending everyone no matter how unpopular or heinous the crime may be. I was very surprised, however, that as a law school dean he did not mention that the right to counsel for defense is in the 6th Amendment to our US Constitution!

I don’t believe the government should be mandating psychiatric interventions for a broad, vulnerable portion of our population. Why not just require all citizens to take happy pills just in case they might not be happy? These screening instruments have a high false positive rate and will subject new mothers and babies to unneccessary and potentially deadly psychiatric treatments. There are better ways to help new moms and babies than this. We should have more programs to support new moms in our society, not medicalize them and label them with supposed biological conditions that require ineffective and toxic biological treatments. Mothers need social support, time with their babies, nursing help and understanding. They don’t need a doctor to tell them they are suffering from psychiatric conditions. Such labels last a lifetime and can lead to damaging treatment. Let’s remember the Hippocratic oath, First Do No Harm. Let’s also help full family units and provide holistic solutions, not psychiatric ones.

I am very opposed to the mothers act. It should always be the choice of the woman to have mental health screening or not. The government forcing this on people is outragious. New mothers will feel tired and be somewhat unstabil. Drugs with black box warning labels is definitly not an answer to this problem. This bill is obviously for pharma profit. Care and understanding is much more effective and not danderous.

I think there is something called post-partum depression; but we certainly don’t need drugs, very toxic drugs, in fact to fix PPD; they do more harm than good. A more natural approach should be used and the government doesn’t and shouldn’t be invovled in this in any way.

Are you going to allow comments to be posted on this website? If not, we will just take our comments about your show elsewhere on the internet.

Why would you want to give a new mother drugs that could kill her, or make her want to kill her child?

I am extremely saddened by the irresponsible representation of the mother’s act. New Mothers do need care, but mandating a mental screening is not the answer, it does not take much intelligence to figure out that this is being promoted for the sake of pharmaceautical companies, I mean christ come on people open your eyes. Prescribing TOXIC drugs to a patient to remedy a situation that might have an actual CAUSE that needs to be addressed physically possibly in the field of nutrition or other health field. These drugs are not the answer, as a woman I am alarmed and horrified at the support of mandated mental screening for MOTHERS. It is pharmaceatical companies taking advantage of the most vulnerable, new mothers, and unborn children. It is sick and sad. Time to wake up and see who is benefitting from this. Large billion dollar companies. . .and NOT the mother. SO IM SORRY but this psuedo “PC” attitude is not going to cut it, we need REAL help in the area of post partum depression, NOT TOXIC BILLION DOLLAR PROFITTING DRUGS

As a woman I am very saddened by the pharmaceutical companies blatant attempt to take advantage of us under the guise of help. Sadly this screening is really only a way for pharmaceutical companies to gain access to unlimited profits and an unlimited pool of new customers for their dangerous drugs by dipping into our tax money. This is not what we need. This is not real help for those of us who need it.

If anyone who is suffering from PPD or regular depression or any other symptom which would lead you to taking any kind of pharma. drug, could realize that there are alternative health practices out there. So many very good ones to choose from. Antideppressants took my infant away from me and educating myself should have been a priority. I was told they were safe but found out by my OB’s partner, that it was very dangerous. So your answers very by whom you are talking with. Unfortunatly I did my homework much to late, and my 6 week infant was tragically taken from our family in Sep. 2008. Please educate yourself’s, don’t just listen to one opinion. Form your own opinion by researching all information you can. Know exactly what you are getting into before you blindly take a pill that could create havoc on your system or if pregnant on your unborn baby’s system. Just because it may work for you does not mean it will work for your baby. Every thing you put in your mouth goes through their system, everything…. and it’s not all safe! Please educate yourself…..

If aperson had a psychosomatic disorder that made him unable to walk, there a re no psychiatric drugs that would be able to make him able to walk. It is a mental – and NOT a physical problem. In the same way, depression is psychosomatic and NOT “chemical imbalance in the brain”.Any psychiatrist will admit that NEVER has a chemical imbalance been tested or proven to exist in the brain causing depression. They will tell you “we are still reswearching for this” – so these drugs are addressing nothing proven to exist in the brain – BUT they have black box warnings that tehy CAUSE DEPRESSION – as well as suicide and homicide. Andrea Yates was on SIX [psychotropic drugs witht hese warnings – and it was the DRUGS that made her kill her children. This FRAUD needs to be brought under the law – not promulgated AS a law.

I am very disappointed in the obvious Big-Pharma influence you have clearly succumbed to. Any woman in her right mind would have serious trepidations about taking mind-altering drugs in the presence of her new child. These things carry black box warnings of suicidal ideations. Who do you think is benefiting from this? Big Pharma alone – not the moms, their families or their children. There are a slew of other solutions, holistic being the best. The tendency to throw drugs out as a solution is frankly lazy and disgusting. And your support of this bill is socially irresponsible as well. I wager that someone on your staff is getting a few monetary favors for all of this.

I do not think women should be routinely checked for the supposed ‘disease’ called postpartum depression. Although I’ve birthed and raised half-way (!) 2 beautiful children and still remember clearly the many and varied struggles of early parenthood, I do not think those with a vested interest in pharmaceutical sales should be routinely getting their noses into every woman’s business when dealing with this major life change. A pill will not make it better for us! Most depression is situational in nature. Our culture is not set up in a ideal way for new mothers at all, especially because many new moms are trying to breastfeed as we naturally should, but don’t have the support that we need to accomplish this sometimes daunting task! Support systems need to be created, not more drugs and drugging!!!!! Check this link out: http://uniteforlife.wordpress.com/the-mothers-act/

Dear Amy,

Hmmm… we show no comments from you that were not allowed!

I do see an email from you, I will write you there
and perhaps paste it here.

By the way, I do think we wil do a follow up on this
very important topic.

Best
Robin

Is there a reason that comments supporting the story and the screening process are not going up? I’ve heard from several people who have left comments here but they aren’t being posted up.