Postpartum depression

AMHERST, Mass. (Mass Appeal) - Many new mothers are surprised at how weak, alone, and upset they feel after giving birth. If you or someone you know has experienced postpartum depression, you're not alone. To share her inspiring story is Liz Friedman, Program Director of Motherwoman and founder of the postpartum support initiative.

Well, I got the e-mail about the TED Women Contest. They have been around for 20 years. It is the first time they have decided to do a womens conference. All about girls and women and impact on the world and importance of ideas. They had a contest and the contest said, in 500 characters or less, if you can imagine, tell us what your big idea is. What do you want to tell the world? What is your thought about how to change things and make things better? I took a moment and wanted to tell my story.

My story is that eight years ago, when I gave birth to my first child, I experienced a very severe postpartum depression afterwards and I just was in freefall. There was no one there to catch me.

What I have done with that experience is, first I had to recover myself because it was a deeply traumatizing and very, very hard year.

After I got through that experience, I took everything that I had learned and every way I had learned to help myself and put it into practice. At MotherWoman now we lead the way, regionally around supporting mothers,who are experiencing postpartum depression. When I say postpartum depression, I want to clarify, not just talking about mothers who are experiencing depression, but mothers who are experiencing anxiety and feel they can't stop crying during the postpartum period. Who have had a dramatic birth, whether the physicians thought so or they even felt just experience that way. It can be incredibly overwhelming and come out of left field. You don't need a history of any kind of mental health difficulty at all to experience postpartum depression.

One of the things that I did for myself, because again, there was no resources, is I started to gather mothers together. It is one of the most incredibly well kept and unfortunately well kept secrets that we have about the postpartum period. We think it is all happy. We think that we will be joyful and supposed to be loving our experience as mothers. It is not the reality. One in eight mothers experiences postpartum depression.

In this entry to the winning this contest was that we, at MotherWoman have created recommendable impactful support group model that is changing the reality for postpartum mothers and helping them to get back on their feet and recover their stability and have amazing postpartum experience.

Our vision is that we have one of these support groups for every 2,000 mothers naturally. That means around the country, no mother is alone if they are experiencing that.

What is really interesting about it, it has been research shows that support groups are highly, highly effective. We want to make sure that every mother has an opportunity.

In the valley here, in Hampshire, Hampden and Franklin county, one support group for spouse and mothers.

We know that it can be done. We have a group, we have trained facilitators working with mothers of color. Incarcerated mothers who are working with mothers dealing with poverty and, so there is many, many opportunities for mothers to have access.

I was very happy to be a mother. I was excited. Had all of the pieces in place. Then things fell apart. My pregnancy was very difficult. My husband was working over full-time, nights and was absent. We were in a new community. I was set up. Really. It was a complete set up but nobody screened me, nobody asked. In fact, one physician asked, do you think that you at risk fo postpartum depression?

Then we went on. My birth was traumatic. Very difficult time. I hemorrhaged. When I went home, within 36 hours after giving birth, I didn't sleep at all for five days. On the fifth day, my uncle died who I was very close to. So it was just a recipe for disaster.

I went into freefall. Fortunately, my parents moved in with us. I had nobody saying, honey, I have been there. You are not losing your mind. That to me is the most important thing I have to say to all of the mothers who are out there. We know that there are mothers watching your show right now that haven't left the house since the baby was born or in that first 6-12 months. You are not alone. If you are having a hard time you will get through. Find contact anywhere you can. A support group, on Facebook, look me up. I'll become your friend.

I'm passionate about helping the mothers and impact on families is immense.

MotherWoman Inc
79 South Pleasant Street
Amherst, Ma 01002
9413) 253-8990
www.MotherWoman.org
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