| Jul. 25, 2006
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
By SONYA PADGETT
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Laura Durrer, who suffered with postpartum depression, plays with her children, Zoeyanne, 6 months, and Riley, 3.
Photos by John Gurzinski.
Jennifer Mujica recovered from postpartum depression after the birth of her second child. Jennifer hands frozen treats to Juliana, 22 months, left, and Sophia, 4.
Dana Dahlberg, who suffered postpartum depression three years ago but recovered, plays with her son, Dax.
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Dana Dahlberg always thought depression was a sign of weakness.
A woman who prided herself on her strength and independent nature, she didn't understand how anyone could allow themselves to feel sad, hopeless or suicidal.
Then Dahlberg had a baby. Almost immediately after the umbilical cord was cut, she was flooded with feelings of despair.
"I was always a pull up by your bootstraps kind of person. I thought people who talked about being depressed, I thought they were kind of a weaker person," she recalls.
In 2003, a couple of months after giving birth to her son, Dahlberg, now 42, was diagnosed with postpartum depression.
Though celebrities such as Brooke Shields and Marie Osmond have brought new and recent attention to postpartum depression, it is by no means a new phenomenon, says Cynthia Huth, perinatal nurse consultant for the Nevada State Health division.
It's believed that 10 percent to 20 percent of mothers experience postpartum depression, Huth says. It occurs within the first two or three weeks of giving birth and can last for months. A woman will often feel sad, cry for no apparent reason, feel despair, hopelessness or helplessness. Untreated, she may become suicidal.
It is different from the "baby blues," which affects as many as 70 percent to 80 percent of mothers, Huth says. And neither postpartum depression nor the baby blues should be confused with the more severe postpartum psychosis, which affects about 0.1 percent of mothers, she adds. Andrea Yates, on trial in Texas for killing her five children, suffered from postpartum psychosis.
Celebrity sufferers and cases such as the Yates trial have increased awareness of postpartum depression in recent years, Huth says. Some states have begun requiring obstetricians to screen for perinatal and postpartum depression, because they are the ones in a position to catch it early.
Huth made screening a requirement for obstetricians with state contracts two years ago. That's when she discovered that, from 1991 to 2001, suicide was the No. 1 cause of maternal deaths in Nevada for a period of up to one year after pregnancy.
While education and awareness of postpartum depression are improving, there is much to be done, local experts say.
Few programs or support groups exist in the valley, says Susan Maurer, a registered nurse and lactation specialist for Family to Family Connection, 6114 W. Charleston Blvd. Maurer is in a useful position because she and other lactation specialists see and interact with mothers right after birth. That gives them the opportunity to look for signs of postpartum depression and offer support if they detect it.
"We get the (mothers) to read as much as they can so they know they're not alone and that it's real," Maurer says. "We try to get family involved to make sure that mom is taken care of. We try and handle it by acting fast and getting them right to their physicians."
Jennifer Mujica began organizing a monthly class in February for mothers with postpartum depression after she herself was diagnosed with it.
"I really wanted to do something to help mothers who were experiencing this problem, because I suffered this with my second child," says Mujica, whose baby is now 22 months old. "When I was having problems I called around looking for support groups and found that there was nothing. I think one of the main reasons I started the support group is there's a misconception in society about PPD."
Coping was difficult, because she and her family moved to Las Vegas only a few weeks after the birth of her baby.
"I had a hard time getting out of bed, I felt overwhelmed. You know, you just start feeling like you're not a good mom. I was just hopeless in general," she says. "I had a new home and a new baby and I thought, 'I just can't do this.' "
Her husband provided a lot of support in the first months of her depression. Sometimes, Mujica felt so overwhelmed, she would call him at work and ask him to come home early. Counseling and an anti-depressants helped her, too. Perhaps her most important coping mechanism was taking time for herself.
"I got back to exercising again. I would arrange for my husband to come home and take care of the kids for a couple of hours. You'd be surprised how much that helped," Mujica says.
Dahlberg, whose depression lifted with hormone therapy, credits her support system with helping her cope while she recovered.
"Honestly, if I didn't have such a fabulous husband, I don't know where I'd be today. He understood what was going on," she said.
In February, with her daughter barely a month old, Laura Durrer was diagnosed with postpartum depression and started taking Zoloft, an anti-depressant. Within weeks, she was feeling better emotionally but isn't 100 percent herself, yet. She didn't like the side effects of the medication so she quit it and began a course of herbal treatments.
Yoga has helped her cope, too.
"While taking the anti-depressants, I felt as though I was able to tread water and make some changes in my life. Taking time for myself was one of the important changes. Yoga helped me with breathing and with mindfulness," Durrer says. "If I have advice for someone going through depression, it's to take yoga. (At least) breathe deeply and try to concentrate on the here and now."
Experts debate the cause of postpartum depression and why some women get it but not others. Some risk factors exist but not in every case, Huth says. A woman can get it after any birth.
Risk factors include: A family history of depression; stressors, such as moving or job loss; a lack of social support; a previous history of depression and complications or fetal anomalies, Huth says.
Hormones appear to play a major role, as women experience tremendous physiological changes during pregnancy and after birth, says Chandler Marrs, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas graduate student who has studied postpartum depression for the past three years.
More research needs to be done on the effects hormones play, Marrs says, and better assessment tools developed.
"Recognizing it is the big thing," says Marrs, who is working on developing a perinatal screening tool. "It goes unrecognized too much."
SUICIDE STATISTICS HIGH FOR NEVADA MOTHERS
Suicide is the No. 1 cause of maternal deaths in Nevada.
Cynthia Huth, perinatal nurse consultant for the Nevada State Health Division, discovered this while preparing for a presentation on the causes of death in women during and up to one year after pregnancy.
I was simply putting together our statistics because I wanted to track the differential diagnoses, so if there was a trend, we could address it, Huth says.
Examining the statistics from 1991 to 2001, she expected to find that ectopic pregnancies or other complications would be main causes of death.
I was a little taken aback, because I was thinking Id find something like hemorrhaging, she says.
Homicide was No. 2.
While shocking, the fact isnt surprising, says Chandler Marrs, a perinatal mental health researcher. She is currently completing a doctorate in psychology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with an emphasis on the mental health of pregnant women and new mothers.
The two years surrounding a pregnancy is the most dangerous time in a womans life, says Marrs, who is completing a dissertation on perinatal mental illness.
Because depression is believed to be an underlying factor in 80 percent to 90 percent of suicides, its important to catch signs of postpartum depression early, notes Misty Allen, suicide prevention coordinator for Nevada. Suicide is the third leading cause of all deaths in Nevada.
The first few months of learning to care for a baby can be stressful, Allen says. Add to that the physiological changes a woman experiences after birth, life changes and lack of a strong support system and its a recipe for depression. Untreated, it can be a precursor to suicide, she adds.
Ultimately, it comes down to isolation and hopelessness, Allen says. I think, especially with PPD, you dont want to tell anyone youre feeling these things and that compounds the isolation. You think youre losing your mind. You may begin to feel you have nowhere to turn and you want to end the pain.
New mothers who feel depressed or are thinking of suicide should reach out to a loved one, a trusted friend or call the National Suicide Prevention hot line at (800) 273-8255 or the Nevada hot line at (877) 885- 4673. |
