Laura Kaplan remembers locking herself in her bathroom and turning on the shower to drown out the sound of her newborn screaming.
“I would leave him in his crib screaming and sit in the bathroom with the door locked. He would scream and I would run the water just to get some relief,” Kaplan said. “I was like, ‘It’s me or you, kid.’”
Kaplan, of Liverpool, was drowning, isolated, despondent and unable to bond with her baby after he was born in 2000.
She had suffered from clinical depression before getting pregnant, and she reached out to her obstetrician for help.
“I told her I was really depressed and unhappy and overwhelmed, and she told me that was natural. She said I couldn’t have postpartum depression because I was on antidepressants,” Kaplan said. “I said, ‘Oh. Okay.’ What did I know? She had a child. She was the doctor. She must know what she’s talking about.”
Having been rebuffed by a medical professional who should have known better, Kaplan, a stay-at-home-mom with no family in the area, thought she might lose her mind.
“I thought I was going crazy,” she said. “How can I hate this baby so much? I know for a fact that I really wanted this baby, but now all I want to do is run away. It went from ‘This is going to be the greatest thing ever,’ to ‘Oh my God, what have I done? This was a huge mistake.’”
Fortunately, Kaplan was eventually able to connect with other moms who told her what she was feeling sounded like postpartum depression.
“I said, ‘My doctor said I couldn’t, because I’m on medication.’ And they said, ‘It sounds like you do,’’ she said. “And it was such a relief, because other moms were telling me I’m not crazy.”
One in seven women
Indeed, Kaplan was exhibiting classic signs of postpartum depression (PPD): bonding issues with the baby, thoughts of harming self or baby and feeling sad, hopeless or overwhelmed.
Other symptoms include crying more often than usual or for no reason; worry, anxiety and insomnia; difficulty concentrating; withdrawing from friends and family; doubting ability to care for baby; and anger, rage, moodiness, irritability and restlessness.
It occurs in anywhere from 11 to 20 percent of pregnant women. Symptoms can be present and indicative of PPD even if the mother is already on medication or undergoing treatment for clinical depression.
Despite the push to increase awareness of PPD and its companion, postpartum anxiety, in recent years, too many women still aren’t getting the help they need.
Only about 15 percent of those women with PPD actually seek treatment, according to Crouse Hospital nurse practitioner Christine Kowaleski, regional coordinator for Postpartum Support International.
Kowaleski is also a professor in the Pomeroy College of Nursing at Crouse Hospital who’s certified in family, neonatal and psychiatric care.
“One out of every seven women struggle, and most of that is done in silence,” Kowaleski said. “They’re afraid of being judged. This is the thing that’s supposed to come most naturally to you, and you’re supposed to be happy about it.”
Kowaleski said there’s been a shift in the way healthcare professionals think about depression in new moms in just the last several years.
It’s now referred to as perinatal depression.
Crouse’s Spirit of Women is hosting the Climb with Crouse from 9 a.m. to noon Sunday, May 24, on the 2K Serengeti Trail at Green Lakes State Park in Fayetteville.
Advance registration at crouse.org/familysupport or calling 708-9748 is recommended, but participants can register the day of the walk; in-person registration begins at 8 a.m. Walkers will begin at the reserved picnic shelter and end at the Park Meadows.
A $20 registration fee includes one free adult T-shirt and park admission for one car for the day.
“Of women with postpartum depression, about 50 percent had symptoms during pregnancy,” she said. “It’s the number one complication of pregnancy and the number two cause of postpartum death. The suicide rate is highest in the first month and the 12th month.”
In an attempt to raise awareness about PPD, Crouse’s Spirit of Women program, which is led by Kowaleski, is hosting the Climb with Crouse from 9 a.m. to noon Sunday, May 24, on the 2K Serengeti Trail at Green Lakes State Park in Fayetteville. (See sidebar for details.)
“This is our first walk,” said Kowaleski, who said she hopes people will bring their whole families. “There will be lots of things for kids to do. We’re hoping the county executive will be there. We’ll have speakers … talking about how hard things were for them.”
Many of the speakers will be people who attend a support group run by Kowaleski for families affected by perinatal depression and anxiety, which meets 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Marley Education Center, 765 Irving Ave. The group offers a safe place for women to share their experiences and get the help and support they need.
“These groups are free regardless of where you delivered. Even if you delivered in Utica, you can come to the family support group,” Kowaleski said. “They’re free and everyone is welcome. You can bring your significant others. You can bring your children.”
Kowaleski said including the whole family in treatment is particularly important.
“It’s a family affair. It affects everyone in the family,” she said. “So we work with the family to get it stabilized, however that may be, whether it’s counseling or referral to whatever services they may need.”
Saving moms, saving babies
Indeed, research is finding that perinatal depression directly affects the child just as much as the mother.
“With the statistics we know now, in addition to the studies coming out of Harvard, we know that if the mother is depressed, not only is it harder for her to care for the baby and may be unintentionally neglectful, but the children are more likely to grow up to be depressed as adults,” Kowaleski said. “We’re finding that the moms that are coming in for treatment have kids with behavioral problems. It makes sense. There’s a ton of momentum to try to capture any symptoms early on and treat them so we can avoid going down that road and seeing comorbidity with children.”
Kowaleski said knowing that their children are more likely to suffer if they don’t seek treatment may prompt mothers to get help sooner.
“I tell them it’s rescuing the children,” she said. “If they know that, if we can explain it without making Mom feel guilty, that their children will be depressed if they don’t get help, there’s a fighting chance.”
For too long, Kowaleski said, moms have avoided seeking treatment because they believed “this is what motherhood is like.”
“For so many years, women have just had to pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” Kowaleski said. “But that’s not how it’s supposed to be. There is help out there, and you will get better. It is not your fault, you did not cause it and you are not alone.”
