In order to support Maternal Mental Health awareness during May – I’m calling out a reason every day during this month that gives experiences and insight to explain more about why it matters.

Maternal Mental Health is more than the “baby blues”, and it effects up to 1 in 5 women, yet its downplayed, underdiagnosed, stigmatized, and otherwise viewed as something that will just go away.  BUT IT WON’T.  Maternal Mental Health (MMH) encompasses a wide range of perinatal mood disorders that can occur including postpartum depressions, postpartum anxiety, postpartum psychosis, postpartum postraumatic stress disorder, postpartum OCD, and bi-polar mood disorder with perinatal onset.  More info on these can be viewed here: https://womenshealthtoday.blog/2017/06/13/understanding-perinatal-mood-and-anxiety-disorders/

MMH conditions are indiscriminate across varying age groups, races, cultures, subcultures, socio-economic status.  It can effect ANYONE. Your mom, your wife, your sister, your friend, your daughter, your colleague, and the list goes on… Maybe they shared, maybe they hid it, maybe you never knew, but if you know 5 women, chances are you know someone who has suffered.

This is the primary reason that we are hosting our event in Skokie on June – to raise awareness and funds dedicated to Maternal Mental Health. PLEASE CONSIDER SUPPORTING BY JOINING OR DONATING TO THE CAUSE. Check out more about it here.

So here is my running list, and I will continue to add to it daily through the month of May.

1. She thought her kids and/or partner would be better off without her
2. When she expressed her fears that she would be a bad mother she was told “don’t worry, you’ll be fine”.
3. She was mommy-shamed for a choice she made for her own self-care
4. She couldn’t access the help she needed
5. She was on edge all the time and picked fights with her partner over little things
6. When she said she felt like she was drowning they all thought she was overreacting or exaggerating.
7. We never told her postpartum anxiety and/or depression has a history in our family.
8. She DID tell her provider her symptoms, but they chalked it up to “new mom anxiety”
9. She says she’s ok, but I hear her crying alone in another room
10. She never mentioned her symptoms because she feared they would take her other children away and/or she would be arrested
11. She told herself she didn’t deserve to a mother
12. She couldn’t find a reason to get out of bed
13. It’s Mother’s Day…..You came from a mother, are a mother, or know a mother – and EVERY mother needs support. Period.
14. She had vividly horrifying dreams of harming her baby even though in real life she never would
15. She lied on the depression screening questionnaire so she could leave, and because she’d never admit to being broken.
16. She set her alarm every 30 minutes to check if the baby was still breathing
17. She felt she failed at every aspect of motherhood
18. She had unexpected and unexplainable panic attacks