PPD Nightmares: Preview

*Disclosure: I was given an opportunity to preview Postpartum Nightmares from Discovery Communications. I was not asked to write a post or compensated in anyway other than being able to watch the episode before it aired. The opinions expressed are all my own.

Some of you may know that I suffered from pretty bad Postpartum Depression* (PPD) and Postpartum Obsessive Compulsive Disorder** after my first child and mild PPD after my second. If you didn't, now you do. Discovery Health will be airing a special on PPD on Tuesday March 2 as part of it's Baby Week. I was given an opportunity to pre-screen this special over the weekend.


The special is called Postpartum Nightmares and was described as: Postpartum Nightmares captures the emotional roller coaster of three new mothers who suffer from severe postpartum mood disorders triggered by the birth of their first baby.

I was both excited and nervous about watching the episode. Excited because we no longer have cable (money saving measure!) so I have not been able to watch any medical specials lately and I missed them. Nervous because my emotions are still all over the place and fragile after my miscarriage. I have teetered on the edge and wondered to myself if I was going to go down that dark path again. My husband, although he wouldn't admit it was worried too as he came downstairs to check on me while I watched it.

After watching it here are my thoughts:

• As with most medical shows it's going to highlight the extremes and do the dramatic reinachment. I knew that and was prepared for that because I have watched many of Discovery Channel's medical shows before. I did feel that the intro was maybe a little bit over the top. While PPD IS a nightmare and DOES feel like you are living in your own horror movie, I don't think the intro needed to look like a horror movie.
• I liked that they featured 3 different women with 3 very different types of PPD and 3 very different treatments. PPD is NOT the same for everyone and what worked for one women may not work for another.
  

Common Symptoms of PPD*:

• The baby blues do not start to fade after about 1 week, or if the feelings get worse.
• Strong feelings of depression and anger come 1–2 months after childbirth.
• Feelings of sadness, doubt, guilt, or helplessness seem to increase each week and get in the way of normal functions.
• She is not able to care for herself or her baby.
• She has trouble doing tasks at home or on the job.
• Her appetite changes.
• Things that used to bring her pleasure no longer do.
• Concern and worry about the baby are too intense, or interest in the baby is lacking.
• Anxiety or panic attacks occur. She may be afraid to be left alone in the house with the baby.
• She fears harming the baby. These feelings are almost never acted on by women with postpartum depression, but they can be scary. These feelings may lead to guilt, which makes the depression worse.
• She has thoughts of self-harm or suicide

• I think the show did a great job of throwing out facts during the stories. They did those both in their experts interviews as well as in words on the screen. Some of the facts I came away with were:

- Up to 20% ( 1 in 8) women will suffer from some form/level of PPD but 80% of them will go undiagnosed and untreated.

- Postpartum Psychosis is RARE (however this is what we see the most of in the news)
- Baby Blues only last 2 weeks, if it goes beyond that it's PPD
- typical PPD OCD is excessive worry and scary thoughts of things happening to the baby

Symptoms of perinatal OCD can include**:

• Obsessions, also called intrusive thoughts, which are persistent, repetitive thoughts or mental images related to the baby. These thoughts are very upsetting and not something the woman has ever experienced before.
• Compulsions, where the mom may do certain things over and over again to reduce her fears and obsessions. This may include things like needing to clean constantly, check things many times, count or reorder things.
• A sense of horror about the obsessions
• Fear of being left alone with the infant
• Hypervigilance in protecting the infant
  

• I think for a pregnant mom (especially a first time mom) the show may be a little overwhelming and scary, it features traumatic birthing scenes that not everyone, will go through. However traumatic births are one causes of PPD so it was not don gratuitously.
• Overall I think it's a well done show that would be good for new moms to watch and just may help someone.
  

I think the most important thing to take away from this is that they are showing it. Discovery is talking about it and get others to talk about it and that is really the most important thing. Many moms, too many moms, don't get the help they need because of the stigma attached to PPD.

For many people the first thing that comes to mind when you say PPD is a mug shot of a mom with crazed eyes who tried to drive her kids and car in a river. That is postpartum psychosis** and that is RARE. But no one wants to be labeled the crazy mom that wants to kill her kids. Trust me. I was there and I didn't even want to admit it to my husband. The more we talk about it, the more we get the word out about how common it is. The more mothers that will get help they need, whatever that is. Again I know this because the only reason I got help was because I read another mom's story.

If you think you are suffering from PPD, the most important thing you can do is talk to someone you can trust. A spouse, a friend, a doctor or you can call Postpartum Support International at 1-800-944-4PPD.


Postpartum Nightmares will air on Discovery Health on Tuesday March 2 8:00pm ET/PT.


This show sparked a lot of memories in and reminded me a lot of my own PDD journey. I wrote about it in a separate post which can be found here.


Sources for facts and information given:
* American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
** Postpartum Support International

My Personal PPD Nightmare

As I watched PPD Nightmares I was stuck my many memories of my own struggles and how much I connected with each of the women featured.

The show highlighted several times something that I probably knew in the back of my head, but that finally crystallized when watching this. Traumatic birthing situations tend to lead to PPD and PTSD as the brains way of coping with the situation. The very first mother they show had a traumatic birth, all three of the mothers had hard labors. While it was happening I wouldn't have called my birth "traumatic", but looking back and revisiting it with this show it was.

I had to be induced because my water broke and after several hours I was still not having contractions. (I want to add that the only reason- in my opinion- my water broke is because my primary OB stripped me membranes, without telling me or asking my permission, 5 days before my due date). Pitocin is not a good thing and is very hard on your body. After almost 24 hours of Pitocin and monitoring, and waiting, waiting, and more waiting, my baby could not get passed zero station and was showing signs of distress (I have hip issues, he was big, they believe he wouldn't get through, or that he already was stuck).

I had an emergency c-section. The section wasn't as scary or traumatic as all the other surroundings of the procedure and the events of the day. I had two infiltrated IV sites, one on each arm. One that could have been prevented if a nurse had come when I called and not allowed my IV to run dry. (Full moon and full labor and delivery, I actual spent some time waiting in the hall for a room!) Once they announced that we were going to need to do a c-section the comfy room I was in suddenly filled with people and walls and cabinets opened to revel surgical prep tools. My epidural was wearing off (I could feel every thing they were doing) and everyone was moving so fast they weren't stopping to answer our questions. I proceeded to have an anxiety attack, which I thought was an asthma attack. I used to work on a post-surgical floor, I have observed surgeries and knew what most of the equipment and things they were doing were for and I was still exhausted and terrified. I cannot even imagine how much more traumatic this is for someone without my background and experience. Post surgery 3 staples fell out leaving a wound that I had to take care of, even after showing several doctors and residents no one bothered to even put a butterfly band-aid on it.

However worst still was the professionalism of two doctors in my practice that saw me afterwards. One, an older male doctor that was the head physician came in to see me the first day post-op. I was very nervous about what post surgical me could do. When could I carry the baby, how could I get up and down the stairs (we lived on the third floor) etc. He brushed off my concerns and with my husband in the room said "don't you want to know about sex? because you can have it now if you want" I was so shocked I couldn't even answer. That was not the worst.

Other than my abdominal pain I was suffering from terrible back pain. Remember I was confined to a bed for 24 hours before giving birth and 24 hours after. Hospital beds are not comfortable. I was taking the pain meds I was allowed at the regular intervals and I was still uncomfortable at times. When my primary OB came in to do the discharge papers she asked what I had been taking for pain and I told her. She literally gasped and tsk tsked me. Commented at how that was "addict levels" and she knew women who had "been through more" and done it with out meds. I could not have felt like a bigger failure at that moment. I couldn't labor, I couldn't hold my baby because my arms were swollen from the infiltrated IVs and my doctor just called me a wimp and an addict. In my mind I was the definition of failure and I had only been a mom for a few days.

Looking at it now, from the outside, I could not have been more susceptible to PPD. (needless to say I also left that practice and never saw my primary OB again). Than I went home.

In the show Alyssa (second mother story) was the mom I really connected with most, our stories were so similar. She says in the show (paraphrased, not direct quote) I was working and than I was at home. With no adult interaction, no brain stimulation - out of touch with the people in my life.

That was exactly me. My husband was home with me for a week and then he went back to work. I was at home, alone. We were in a city and neighborhood that we loved but I did not know one person in the town. I was the only one of my local friends to have a child. I literally would go days, sometimes a whole week, without ever leaving the house or talking to someone other than my husband. I lived and breathed carrying for that baby, it was the only thing on my mind. It could be days before I realized I hadn't showered, or hours before I realized I hadn't eaten.

I have a background in healthcare and biology. I was pretty smart, I knew the symptoms. I knew I was depressed. I had no idea, really no idea, that it was not normal to obsessively check on your child. I had no idea that it was not normal to be imagining every worse case scenario of every moment of your day. Every single moment. I would be changing a diaper and I would wonder, in vivid detail what if he rolled off, hit is head, was sitting in a pool of blood. What if when we were crossing the street a car hit the stroller, would it drag it, would it flip over, would he fly out and hit the cement. Scary reading huh? Imagine seeing it, in all its gory detail when you look at your child. This was my life and I thought it was normal. Until I read an article in Self that described Postpatrum OCD and anxiety. It told ones more story and struggles to get through it. It was like a light bulb in my head went off. I don't want to know where I would be if I hadn't seen that article.

However like one of the moms featured in the show, I didn't get help, I didn't admit to anyone what was going on until I was confronted. My husband could tell something was wrong, he knew it. I started crying one day when he checked in from work. I said something along the lines of thinking that I was going to die if this baby didn't stop crying and sleep. He listened. He came home early and said very clearly, we either sit down, talk about this and figure out what we are going to do or I am taking you to the ER NOW. I cried, I talked, I showed him the article and I told him what was in my head. As we like to talk about it around here, "I let all the crazy out".

I beat my PPD with my husbands help. I did not seek medical help for my PPD. In hind sight maybe I should have, maybe I would have gotten over it quicker. However I did not want to be put on drugs and my primary had already offered that when I talked about being depressed with him. I was more scared of being on drugs, not being myself or totally in control of my thoughts and actions than I was of any of the thoughts in my head. I did not trust, like, or respect my primary OB after my delivery. I was not about to go to her and tell her what was going on. She had already basically called me a wimp and an addict.

What I did is what WORKED FOR ME, I am not recommending it for anyone else. I followed a very similar course to Alyssa's. I mediated and prayed. We made sure I was getting time for me. To run, to exercise, to socialize. I joined a moms group and got out of the house. I stopped eating junk food, we switched to a more natural diet and I gave up alcohol for several months as it was not helping. My husband stepped up and started doing more and more for me and the baby when he was home. In the show she says how you have to make yourself a priority, than your husband, and only then can you take care of an infant. She was so right. I had poured my whole self in to child care I had gotten lost.


Again this is what worked for ME.

This was my nightmare and I recovered. I also want to make clear, probably for my own self consciousness than anything else. For me I never thought about hurting my baby. I was never the one that caused him, in my thoughts and images to be hurt. I only ever thought about hurting myself. I thought he does not deserve to have a mother as incompetent as me. In the show they validated these feelings, they said most moms with severe PPD become suicidal to protect the baby, again putting our child's needs before our own.

I hope you never have to go through anything like I did. If you do, know that there is help, you do get better and you will not ruin your children. I have two beautiful children. My son is a very bright and amazing boy. The times I had to leave him in his crib, alone and crying because I was loosing my mind from the crying, sleep deprivation and PPD did not damage him, they protected him and me from horrible things happening.

Most importantly, know that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. You can get help.

Some other good reads and resources online:

The Symptoms of Postpartum Depression & Anxiety (in plain mama English)

How Does a Mom with Postpartum Depression Get Help When She Can't Even Brush Her Teeth

Mayo Clinic: Postpartum Depression

ACOG: Postpartum Depression

Postpartum Progress

Postpartum Support International