August 11, 2008
My Recovery From Post Partum Psychosis
Recently I agreed to help Amy Philo with her work online to defeat The Mothers Act in Congress.
Inspired by her wonderful you tube video, I decided to make one of my own.
Here is the video created this morning at One True Media.
Jenny Hatch
Amys video:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For easier reading of Amys Article go to the PDF version hosted on her blog I don't have the gumption to format it.
Sanders Turns Blind Eye To Victims, Sponsoring Deadly MOTHERS Act
by Amy Philo, 214-705-0169, 817-793-8028
amy@uniteforlife.org
MEDIA ADVISORY –August 7, 2008 – The Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act, a
bill to institute nationwide screening and “treatment” of expectant and new mothers at
risk for depression, anxiety, and other “mental illness,” has been pushed by pharmabacked
groups for the past several years with little success until recent months. Countless
millions of dollars are already being spent each year marketing drugs to women of
childbearing age, and an astounding one third of all pregnant women in the U.S. take
psychotropic drugs according to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
But pharmaceutical companies are apparently not happy with their current recordbreaking
profits. When advertising returns diminish and black box warnings for suicide
threaten to scare off potential customers, government mandates can sure come in handy.
Senator Bernard Sanders (I-VT) is one man co-sponsoring The MOTHERS Act. (See his
recent PAC contributions here. They include tens of thousands of dollars from various
groups such as a PAC for “advancing psychology,” “New Jersey First,” and numerous
other questionable donations that could alone explain his co-sponsorship of this bill.) An
email sent by Senator Sanders’ office responding to opposition against the bill stated that
The MOTHERS Act has nothing to do with medication. When asked for a comment,
Sanders’ press secretary on behalf of the Senator guaranteed that no women would be
forced to take psychiatric drugs as a result of the legislation, should it pass.
Who will put their faith in Senator Sanders’ assessment of a bill that he co-sponsors quite
possibly only because of who contributes to his reelection campaigns? Should the public
ignore the fact that a diagnosis of depression, or being “at risk” for depression in the large
majority of cases results in a prescription for antidepressants, which then lead to
psychosis, homicidal and suicidal ideation and subsequent force drugging with more
antidepressants, anti-psychotics, anti-anxiety drugs, as well as electroshock? Or are we
supposed to just relax and trust that if Bernard Sanders says so, passing The MOTHERS
Act would not increase the disastrous practices of doctors and others in the mental
“health” field?
Rather than face the deception of pharmaceutical companies in promoting antidepressants
and anti-psychotics as protective against suicide, the sponsors of The MOTHERS Act
continue to turn a blind eye. In addition to suicide and homicide, documented deadly
risks of antidepressants include preterm birth, spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, cardiac
birth defects, pulmonary hypertension, and fatal birth defects, among others. Because
these dangers are undeniable, the financially conflicted proponents of The MOTHERS
Act now make desperate attempts to distract from the central goal of the legislation and
to appear unbiased and even holistic.
You decide, which is worse - the preemptive and arrogant denial of deaths, serious
trauma and emotional suffering that this legislation would bring about for millions of
families, or the promotion of these outcomes by some of the most outspoken medication
advocates pushing for the bill? And how does Bernard Sanders justify his claim that more
women will not be forced when compulsory drugging is already an everyday occurrence
in this country? Why pass a bill to screen the nation’s mothers and get them into
treatment at all, when women already have the freedom to seek “help?”
In 1988 Jenny Hatch was placed in a Michigan state mental institution for postpartum
psychosis and drugged with Haldol. She stayed there for nine days until she could be
transferred to a private hospital, where she says she fought back with the staff on the
medication issue for two weeks. Ultimately the private hospital sent Jenny back to the
state hospital and she fought medications for six more days, telling everyone that she was
breastfeeding a baby and could not take their drugs. A judge then ordered "90 days
additional incarceration in the hospital and forced meds."
She was sent back to a private hospital where they forced Lithium, Stelazine, and Prozac. When she became extremely suicidal on Prozac, the Stelazine was withdrawn and the Prozac was doubled. Ultimately after finally leaving the hospital, Jenny located a doctor who helped her wean off all medications over a six-month period. She also followed up by beginning a full body
detoxification and then went on to have four more children, fortunately with zero psychiatric pills to follow.
Over the last 18 years Jenny has advocated against forced drugging and her story has
been publicized in various magazines and books. But for psychiatry, old habits die hard.
In a recent blog entry, Jenny wrote about two women who had contacted her who had a
history of psychosis and were told that if they ever had any more children, they would be
ordered to take antipsychotic drugs for two full years following the births in order to
“prevent” PPP.
Similarly, New Jersey’s “MOTHERS Law,” passed in 2006, has already
resulted in mothers being forcibly taken to the hospital by police simply for mentioning
to their doctors they were depressed or calling a PPD hotline. Force is certainly nothing
new in psychiatry, and in fact it has been central to the field for its entire history. It seems
that the drug pushers care only about maintaining income at all costs. Those caught by
psychiatry cannot be called patients at all but rather, victims.
In 2004 my firstborn, three-day-old son nearly died from choking while trying to vomit
formula at Children’s Hospital. We had only arrived at the hospital a few minutes before
he choked, and when they sent us home the next day, the trauma of nearly losing my son
hit me hard in the form of a panic attack. I was told that having had a panic attack meant I
would get severe PPD and should take drugs to “prevent” that from happening. I took
Zoloft for only three days before hallucinating murdering Isaac when he was only nine
days old. When I sought help at the hospital I was involuntarily incarcerated and forced
to swallow more Zoloft despite my suspicions about the drug. They did let me go home
eventually, when I faked being stable on the meds because I could not handle the forced
separation from my baby and my family. For months I waited for the drug to work and
even took higher and higher doses, which resulted in the homicidal obsessions
progressing from frequent to constant and being focused on my mother, husband, cats
and neighbors in addition to my baby. The higher the dose I took, the less I felt disturbed
by these thoughts, and these constant ideas of homicide were followed by thoughts of
suicide to protect my son from me. I stopped taking Zoloft after giving it five months to
“start working,” and “miraculously” my intense obsession with murdering my son and
my family and committing suicide disappeared within a few weeks of my last pill. I
survived psychiatric treatment, but that is more than we can say for Melanie Stokes, who
went through four hospitalizations and four series of drug cocktails as well as
electroshock before her suicide.
Which brings us to the infamous “non-profit” group, Postpartum “Support” International,
who claims to be the lead sponsor of The MOTHERS Act, while also maintaining that
they have no interest in seeing pharmaceutical companies do well. This group has put
countless women in danger by pushing drugs with absolutely no remorse and no mention
of the risks, and it has dishonored Melanie Stokes by doing so much of this in her name.
PSI also pushes government agencies and the private sector to advertise depression in
print and on TV so that women will “admit” their depression and seek “help.” The group
espouses the idea that the universal mental screening proposed by The MOTHERS Act is
justifiable because too many women apparently do not realize they are depressed and
need a screening to tell them so.
Despite being a “non-profit,” the organization consists of numerous mental health
professionals who directly benefit from increased diagnosis and drugging of mothers.
They also will be eligible to receive grants to carry out enforcement of the nationwide
detection of women considered at risk of mental illness, should The MOTHERS Act
pass, and they even have these enforcers ready and waiting to start their surveillance as
soon as the bill becomes law (or as they hope it will).
So we’re supposed to trade our freedom and our lives for this bill, and accept that women
who do not feel depressed can trust a quiz to tell them that they are so depressed that they
can’t live without “treatment?”
(Mental Illnesses: The Only ‘Diseases’ Spread Through Pop Quizzes)
Shari Lusskin M.D., who is a long-time member of the advisory board of Postpartum
Support International (PSI) and a professor of “reproductive” psychiatry at NYU,
discussed PTSD in new mothers for a recent Wall Street Journal article written by Rachel
Zimmerman. The article promoted diagnoses of mental illness for women who go
through traumatic childbirth, as well as prevention of “PTSD” via the use of drugs like
Zoloft during pregnancy. With this new push to redefine aftershock from trauma as a
disease, any woman having an emergency c-section, or any woman whose baby has a
life-threatening complication, or any woman whose baby’s heart rate drops during labor,
or any woman giving birth to a dead baby could be classified as mentally ill rather than
deemed to be reacting normally to an emergency surgery or the death or threat of death to
her own baby.
In this Wall Street Journal PTSD article Lusskin said that mothers who experience
Lusskin placed this photo next to her
disclosure of conflicts of interest as a
paid speaker for four pharmaceutical
companies.
traumatic births should not jump to the conclusion that they will get PTSD. This
statement is highly ironic considering her employment as a speaker for Wyeth,
AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and GlaxoSmithKline. In a separate presentation made to mental
health “professionals” Lusskin promoted a range of psychotropic medications and even
electroshock for use by pregnant and nursing mothers.
In the same article, Susan Stone, the immediate past
president of PSI, discussed The MOTHERS Act,
stating that “the law's intent is to provide ‘effective’
care, whether it's talk therapy, medications or some
combination, to suffering mothers.”
I find this article absurd considering that with the push
to prevent depression and PTSD by drugging women
before they give birth, more babies will die or be born
with life-threatening complications. More babies will
suffer drops in heart rate as the drugs given to their
mothers for labor interact with those given to them for
depression or prevention of PTSD, causing more
traumatic emergency c-sections and stillbirths. And
more women who lose their babies as a result of
preemptive drugging will become severely depressed
and doctors will try to drug away their grief. So much
for treating or preventing PTSD.
Considering the fact that PSI recently sponsored an
event to push drugs on anxious women called “Beyond The Blues,” cosponsored by
AstraZeneca, it is more apparent why The MOTHERS Act mentions medications and
biological agents and not simply antidepressants. Because we wouldn’t want to rule out
the government-sponsored drugging of women with drugs given for anxiety and panic
attacks.
Zimmerman’s timing in publishing this PTSD promo article is impeccable. The PTSD
marketing all ties in quite neatly with the next big epidemic. Perhaps if antidepressants
cannot be shown to help depression, drug companies can resort to marketing them for
numbing the effects of PTSD, as the patients taking them become psychotic and no
longer show any remorse, regret, or fear. In fact, the Pentagon just launched a $300
million project to study PTSD in the military. I can think of many ways that money could
be better spent for our military than by administering drugs and waiting to see their
effects. Yet many people want to do the same thing for all the nation’s mothers.
Julie Edgington, whose son Manie was born with Paxil-caused Transposition of the Great
Arteries, wrote to Rachel Zimmerman of the Wall Street Journal in protest of the
“perinatal PTSD” article. “My mission has become very difficult especially when
reporters want to demean what has happened to my son by singing the praises of
antidepressant use to help with postpartum depression. The MOTHERS Act is set up to
screen women even during pregnancy for depression and the only listed treatment is
biochemical. What does this mean? It means this world better get ready for many many
more babies to be born like my son if this act is passed. Paxil is now a Class D drug yet
GSK continues to tell women to take the drug if the benefits outweigh the risk. When the
risk is serious and deadly birth defects why would they tell women to take this drug? The
same reason they want to pass the MOTHERS Act. The same reason why they said
nothing when they knew years before I became pregnant with my son that their drug
caused heart defects. They are not scared to get away with murder.”
No amount of settlement money from GlaxoSmithKline, no apology, no ban on drugs and
no prison terms for pharmaceutical employees could take away Manie’s heart defect,
resurrect all the stillborn and miscarried babies who died because of psychotropic drugs,
or turn back the clocks and hold Melanie Stokes back from the ledge of her twelfth-story
hotel window. Nothing that anyone does could remove my memory of being homicidal
toward my son and my family. But we must continue to hold accountable all those who
find preventable deaths and ruined lives to be nothing worth worrying about.
Over the past several months I have been confronted numerous times by drug apologists
slamming me for my opposition to The MOTHERS Act. In my replies I have used my
story, the FDA suicide and birth defect warnings, the irony of the way this bill dishonors
Melanie Stokes, and numerous other facts including studies documenting no benefit for
antidepressants, only tremendous harm. On more than one occasion top members of PSI
including Susan Stone and Birdie Meyer, the current President, persisted with claims that
antidepressants are generally safe and effective. Stone also wrote that in many cases of
claimed adverse effects such as a drug-induced suicide or murder, it was the “underlying
disease” and not the drug that caused the tragedy, although she said that there may be a
“small number” of people experiencing adverse events from the drugs.
Apparently the track record of this organization is not very good, considering that several
of the people who contacted me admit to numerous cases of the women they worked with
ultimately committing suicide or killing their children. Yet Stone refers to The
MOTHERS Act as a “no brainer.” Clearly the only way that this bill could end anyone’s
suffering would be via permanent relief for the depressed mother in the form of suicide or
lethal injection in prison.
Given that PSI operates internationally, perhaps they would have noticed that many
countries do not drug quite as many of their mothers as the U.S. does, and these countries
have better outcomes. Unlike the U.S.A., the U.K. has actually banned the sale of
antidepressants for children and teens due to the suicide risk. But in the U.S. PSI finds it
acceptable to drug America’s unborn and newborn babies through their mothers’ bodies.
Would this madness be tolerated in any normal society? Will the U.S. professionals’
affinity for drug-murder of families spread around the world like an infectious disease? In
Sweden, where minimal monitoring of suicide victims’ health histories is conducted,
86% of all suicides have been committed by people taking psychotropic medications.
77% of these cases involved antidepressants and neuroleptics. Most patients were taking
multiple medications at the time of death, due to the common practice of “treating” the
dangerous effects of drugs by adding more.
I suppose it would be fitting if The MOTHERS Act could be totally rewritten and really
would put a stop to the mistreatment of new mothers in a way that would honor the
untimely drug and electroshock-induced death of Melanie Stokes. But instead, it will only
perpetuate psychiatry’s death grip, expanding the magnitude of the drug-net by adding
the force of a federal mandate to the industry’s current efforts to “screen” women for
mental disorders - all without offering informed consent or alternatives to drugs. When
the Seventeen Magazine-style pop psychology quizzes inevitably tell hormonal women
that their feelings are signs of mental illness, are we supposed to believe that doctors will
not prescribe drugs? Will the federal government engage in any sort of monitoring to
determine how ineffective and deadly the program is and compare the percentage of
women killing their children in the next five years to the previous five? Will black box
warnings be given to women, or will doctors hand out samples after removing the drug
labels as was done to me? And will Bernard Sanders and all of the people voting for this
bill take responsibility for these deaths, this violence against our most vulnerable citizens,
which risks the life of every new baby born in our country?
Clearly the U.S. has already fallen below anyone’s lowest expectations for how severely
our government has betrayed its own people and offered them up as human sacrifice for
the sake of greed, yet we are facing the possibility of the passage of The MOTHERS Act,
among other nightmare legislation, with the consequence of even more intrusion,
suffering, and death.
Rock on Amy!
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 11:38 AM
March 29, 2008
Freebirth: A Message to Obstetricians from Jenny Hatch, "Physician Heal THYSELF!!"
This video is hosted on My Share Page at One True Media
In the past few months four obstetrics societies have made public statements about Unassisted Childbirth.
The Canadian Doctors (SOGC):
The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC)
The Australian and New Zealand Doctors:
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
The Royal College (RCOG) in the UK:
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG)
And in a recent article in the Denver Westword Newspaper (I was interviewed for this story)
A Spokesperson for ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) claimed freebirth was "dangerous".
Childbirth goes solo.
By Jared Jacang Maher
Published: May 10, 2007
"According to the guidelines of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the organization "strongly opposes" any birth not performed inside a hospital. A spokesman for the ACOG has a one-word assessment of freebirth: "dangerous."
I have just one message for these doctors, and it is this:
"The moral of the proverb is counsel to prove your trustworthiness with your own affairs before attempting to tell others what they should do."
Break out of the Matrix!
When the various obstetrics societies PROVE that they have the will to reform themselves internally by setting up standards of care that are more about the mother and the baby than they are about the doctor and staff at the hospital, then I will feel more open about listening to any edicts they have about my lifestyle.
Hey Doctors: why don't you set some goals....
1. No inductions before 41 weeks
2. 10% C-section rate
3. No elective C-sections
4. Full acceptance of Lay and Nurse Midwifery both in the home and at the hospital
5. A Complete and total acceptance of VBAC (Vaginal Birth after Cesarean)
6. A willingness to embrace proper prenatal nutrition as the foundation for a healthy pregnancy as outlined by the Brewer Pregnancy Diet
When society stops locking up our midwives for bogus reasons, embrace and promote natural mothering as the IDEAL for a new baby (Natural Childbirth, Attachment Parenting, and Long Term Ecological Breastfeeding), then I will believe you have found your soul as doctors.
Until then? Well, I am going to continue promoting freebirth and encouraging families to break away from your way of giving birth, because frankly, the way you do it stinks.
Lamaze International has a white paper on Elective cesarean Vs. Vaginal Birth (PDF)
American College of Nurse Midwives:
RISKS OF CESAREAN DELIVERY ARE UNDERREPORTED,
BENEFITS OVERSTATED
Media Briefing Highlights Concerns In Advance of NIH Conference
QUOTE:
"Only women themselves can tell us if they are actually demanding cesarean section surgery. With what we are learning from Childbirth Connection today, we now know that women VERY rarely schedule first cesareans by choice without a medical reason," says Susan Hodges, president of Citizens for Midwifery. "Only women can tell us what kind of informed consent process was provided to them. Citizens for Midwifery believes that women are not being given adequate and unbiased information about all the risks and benefits of cesarean sections. Research is needed to understand who and what are now influencing decisions to perform major abdominal surgery 'for no medical reason' despite substantial evidence that all cesareans increase harmful risks for mothers and babies."
Free yourself from the Matrix~!
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 2:35 PM
February 20, 2008
Help stop the mothers act (Activist Alert!!!)
Hawthor allerted me to a new campaign to screen all moms for post partum emotional illness.
Read her excellent post and check out the comments below, they provide a compelling conversation for where we are with education and current myths in the minds of many women regarding what causes post partum illness.
My long time readers know that I had a post partum psychosis after the birth of my first baby....
This is a picture of me with my oldest daughter Michelle when she was ten days old. I did not become manic until we moved when she was six weeks old. After a month of mania, little social support, and very little sleep, I dropped over the cliff into psychosis and was hospitalized for six weeks.
Here is a picture of me in suicidal depression over a year later. I had been court ordered to eat Haldol, Lithium, and Stelazine. This picture was taken after Prozac was added to my chemical cocktail and a few days before I was hospitalized again, this time for suicidal depression. I am convinced the Prozac tipped me over into suicidal thinking.
Mothering Magazine published an excellent article on Post Partum Psychosis this past year. My story was featured as a side bar article in the mag, and recently they published the account on their web site.
And the text of the piece:
Pregnancy after Psychosis
By Sarah R. Fields
May/June 2007 - Issue 142
Article: Losing It
Side Bar: Postpartum Mood Disorders Guide
During my months of recovery, when I began reading about perinatal mood disorders, I came across a case study of a woman who had survived postpartum psychosis. As I read entries from the diary kept by Jenny Hatch while she was in the hospital, I finally felt as if someone understood what I had experienced. Jenny's confidence and wisdom empowered me during my healing. Her story gave me the strength and the knowledge to believe I could still have a baby and remain well—I would have entered my third pregnancy with great hesi-tation and fear had I not first spoken with her. When I decided to tell my own story (Losing It), Jenny agreed to let me tell hers, too.1-3
Jenny Hatch suffered postpartum psychosis when she was 21, following the birth of her first child. She spent a month in a psychotic and manic state before being hospitalized for several weeks. Since then, she has given birth to four more children, with no relapse. During each post-partum period, Jenny has effectively employed natural preventive methods to stave off mood disorders.
In the first months following her psychosis, Jenny saw 12 different doctors, all male. About four months after her hospitalization, she met a female psychiatrist, who treated her with natural progesterone. Jenny said the hormone treatment returned her to a state of equilibrium. "I felt it was the first major step in healing."
The closest Jenny has come to another psychotic episode was after the birth of her fourth child, who was taken to the NICU. Jenny missed three nights' sleep and "could feel the tidal wave. I was going to crash into psychosis." Her husband brought her a liquid calcium-magnesium supplement, which she took along with vitamin B complex to nourish her body. The natural minerals and vitamins were enough to allow her to achieve deep sleep. After the birth of each of her babies, Jenny has gone to extremes to protect her sleep. "When I have a new baby, I do nothing. I let my house go nuts so I can nap. I can feel when the mania is building. It has always been connected to sleep deprivation." From that experience, Jenny has come to believe that emergency rooms and mental hospitals should greet psychotic and manic patients with nutritional supplements rather than medications, which bring along with them a host of side effects. To regulate her health over the years, Jenny has employed the wisdom of three homeopaths, an osteopath, and an herbalist. "The mixing of healing modalities is what made my healing complete. Everybody made a contribution." She uses Sunrider Chinese herbs, Nature's Sunshine herbs, and Young Living essential oils.
Jenny views her bout with psychosis as a gift from God. She relates that, in the traditional practice of some Native American cultures, if someone had a break with reality, the village would surround that person to prevent injury, while allowing the psychosis to run its course. Then, that person would be apprenticed to the group's shaman. Surviving psychosis gave Jenny permission to do with her family as she knew best, including unassisted homebirth and attachment parenting. She feels that God was telling her, "You're an adult now," giving her courage to face family and friends who might doubt her choices. Jenny asserts, "I am very good at saying 'no,' and have not felt too much shame or guilt for spending money on myself and taking good care of my physical, emotional, and spiritual self."
Jenny creates a protective space in which she can nurture her body and her family in the postpartum period. She says, "I truly believe quiet living is the key to mental wellness."
NOTES
1. A book-length version of Jenny Hatch's story, A Mother's Journey: My Story of Healing after Postpartum Psychosis, can be downloaded at www.naturalfamilyco.com.
2. This sidebar is based on personal communications with Jenny Hatch via telephone (11 May 2006) and e-mail (17 May 2006).
3. Jenny Hatch's story is also discussed in Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, Depression in New Mothers: Causes, Consequences and Treatment Alternatives (New York: Haworth Press, 2005), 199?214.
—S. R. F.
Sarah Fields sings, writes, and mothers in Hobart, Indiana, where she lives with her husband, Carl, and their children, Anna (4) and John (2).
I really enjoyed working with Sarah on this article and was so grateful to Mothering for taking on the topic. With so many women using antidepressants, the psychosis rates have gone up markedly. When I went psychotic nineteen years ago, it was one out of a thousand women who had a post partum psychosis. And the recurrence rate for those of us who had a mental break was one out of six. Recently I read that the recurrence rate is hitting one out of two. Which means fifty percent of those of us who have had post partum psychosis are having psychotic episodes after subsequent births. I believe the psychiatric meds are causing this alarming increase in psychosis.
Here is a link to an article I wrote for Compleat Mother online four years ago, it makes the case that psychiatric meds are a huge souce or repeat and increased emotional distress.
And the amazing Ann Blake Tracy had this to say about the recent push to SCREEN all mothers:
STOP THE MOTHERS ACT!!
EXTREMELY URGENT NEWS ON MOTHERS ACT!!!! CLICK HERE TO GET THE PRESS RELEASE AND SEND IT TO EVERYONE YOU CAN, ESPECIALLY FAXES TO THE SENATORS (FOR COMPLETE phone / fax CONTACT INFO. FOR SENATORS ON THE COMMITTEE CLICK HERE. A text version is available here.)
Sign the petition here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-the-dangerous-and-invasive-mothers-act
Click here to get a flyer ready to print... (save it, then open it to print correctly) Click here to view the flyer... To get a copy emailed to you for 8.5 x 11 printing, email amy@uniteforlife.org
UPDATE: The HELP Committee meeting on this was postponed. The Senate is in a week-long recess. We want at least a million signatures on our petition so please share it with others.
-------------------------
Past efforts:
This is the URL to a congressional soapbox alert set up by pro-drugging mental health groups. You can use the form but please make sure you alter the letter before hitting submit!!! (To read Dr. Tracy's letter click here)
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/webreturn/?url=/ndmda/issues/alert/?alertid=10862256
Please alter the information in the pre-written letter to indicate your disapproval of the proposed law!!!
I am asking all of my friends to go to the website and write against this act. Melanie Blocker Stokes was a pharmaceutical rep who killed herself by jumping off a balcony when she was a new mom. She had been given many medications as well as ECT.
Antidepressants are ineffective and dangerous. See the numerous links and articles on our website and www.ssristories. com - there are links to many many relevant websites here and on SSRI Stories if you feel you need more information.
It's bad enough that all new mothers are already inherently not trusted with their own babies. We don't need to add to the paranoia, and the postpartum stage is a time for support and bonding, not inspection and scrutiny and drugging.
CCHR has had this action alert against the MOTHERS Act on their site for a while but since this is coming up for a vote in the Senate it is time to act now.
There are actually two soapbox alerts from the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance on the Congress.org website.
If you have time you can also create your own soapbox alert and it will appear in sopabox section of Congress.org's website, and you can also check a box on your letter to make it appear in the Letters To Leaders section of the Congress.org website.
The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance created the soapbox alert form that is linked to at the top of the page. They are asking for support for the MOTHERS Act, which will be voted on within weeks. It has passed the house and is currently in the Senate in committees. Please use this form and then go on the Congress.org website and contact all of the other committee members if you have time. The information about the committees is on the soapbox alert written by the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. They also created a "handy" support program for "bipolar" women who are pregnant or new parents. It's quite disturbing to even think of all the things they are promoting. Your support of truth and safety is urgently needed.
This was written by Dr. Ann Blake Tracy.
My letter to Sen Charles Grassley:
I am writing as a constituent to ask you to NEVER support S.1375, the MOTHERS Act, when it is considered by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
This legislation is named for a young mother who, after suffering postpartum depression, tragically took her own life. She was given four combinations of anti-psychotic, anti-anxiety, and anti-depressant medications. She also underwent electroconvulsive therapy. Her family rallied around her with all their strength, but in the end, Melanie jumped to her death from the twelfth floor of a Chicago hotel. This is sheer torture and it is no wonder that this poor young mother was pushed over he edge by it all rather than being allowed to recover from her pregnancy and delivery.
Post partum psychosis happens in one out of 1000 new moms, but on antidepressant medications alone - without all the rest of the drugs she was given - that percentage of psychosis jumps by 10 times to one in 100 according to most package inserts for these drugs. This is akin to murder!
This legislation will ensure that new mothers and their families are also subjected to such treatment as they are screened for symptoms and provided so called "help" that pushes these new mothers over the edge.
Far too many Americans know little about mental illness in general, let alone about this tragic illness affecting young mothers and their families. Mental illness affects millions of Americans, but just how much of it is medication-induced? Bipolar Disorder has increased by 4000% in a recent 10 year period since the introduction of the newer antidepressans that are notorious for causing this disorder. The cost is beyond description! To get an idea in real life costs go to the database at www.ssristories.com posted by an Iowa native. You can also read last weeks paper on the mother in Ankeny who attempted to kill her son and then killed herself in withdrawal from her antidepressant - a very dangerous period as the FDA warned in 2005.
The MOTHERS Act is not needed and will only add to the nation’s most serious medical and social problems.
I look forward to your firm stand against this legislation when the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee votes on it.
Thank you for your consideration.
======
Here is the letter sent by Amy Philo (if you also saved a copy of your letter, feel free to send it to us and we will post it here).
I am writing as a constituent to ask you to vote AGAINST S.1375, the MOTHERS Act, when it is considered by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
When I was a first time new mother, the interference of doctors and nurses led to my being prescribed Zoloft. I had a severe adverse reaction and became homicidal and suicidal. You can see my story at
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa060802_kd_chaada.2698424.html
It is also completely written out in full detail at:
http://chaada.org/smf/index.php?topic=15.0
Also see the recent news about the fact that antidepressants do not work but drug companies have been suppressing the negative trial data:
http://www.uniteforlife.org/suppresseddata.htm
In my opinion this bill is being promoted solely for the profit of pharmaceutical companies. There is nothing more threatening to the fabric of our society and to the future well being of our children and their parents than the invasion of privacy on new moms, especially in a way that threatens the safety of babies and their mothers. If you really want to help moms, we can support them with requirements for longer maternity leave and support for postpartum networks that enable her to find help with household duties and meals, breastfeeding and parenting.
I had a second baby 16 months ago at home with a midwife's support. I had time to bond with him without interference. I had NO drugs in my body and I had NO postpartum depression. The rise in senseless violence is due to the rise in interference with drugs and the lack of social support.
If women can be given social support they will not be subject to confusing advice that causes them to doubt themselves and wind up on mind-altering drugs that cause them to murder and commit suicide.
If this bill is passed, any money spent on screening will be a complete waste of tax dollars. The results will be an INCREASE in the severity and frequency of postpartum depression and an increase in violence and suicide.
Mass mental health screening programs already in place like Teen Screen have shown to be ineffective and dangerous with an 84% plus misdiagnosis rate and the majority of students referred have been put on damaging and dangerous mind-altering drugs. See www.ssristories.com as well, for details on the recent school shootings which have involved psyciatric drugs.
I would like to see a full federal investigation of the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry with an emphasis on examining the effects of antidepressants. These drugs should be banned, and anyone who attempts to push them on a mom should be penalized.
Thank you for your consideration.
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 4:56 AM
February 5, 2008
Motherwear Podcast: Kathy Kendall-Tackett
Motherwear Blog Podcast: Postpartum depression, breastfeeding, and why you need your Omega 3s.
I took the time to put the pod cast in this format because this information is crucial. While I don't agree with Dr. Tackett that anti-depressants are safe for moms to take while breastfeeding (I think they should be completely banned and are unfit for all human consumption) I do appreciate the fact that she is cued in to the research showing which anti-depressants break down in the body fastest, and thus are less harmful to the baby.
Enjoy this wonderful production by Tanya Lieberman at the Motherwear Blog.
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 5:13 AM
January 19, 2008
Post Partum Psychosis and Depression, A few thoughts
A few days ago I had an email from the mother of a woman who is hospitalized with Post Partum Psychosis right now. She thanked me for the article I wrote a few years back at Compleat Mother and said that it gave her hope for her daughter.
Here is a link to that article:
The past day or so I have been thinking about my experience so much. With this recent report out that Pharmaceutical companies fudged the studies on anti-depressants, and the fact that whistleblowers have been screaming for years about the risks of Anti Depressants and Peter Breggin and psychiatrists like him have been writing, testifying, publishing, and educating a mostly disinterested public while mocked and belittled by the media, well, it is all just very unsettling to my mind.
For many years I believed that I needed the drugs I was court ordered to eat. I was given Haldol, Stelazine, Lithium, and later Prozac for the many different symptoms of mental illness I was exhibiting. In May of 1990 I asked my psychiatrist to help me wean off of the meds and thankfully she agreed to help me. We gradually took my Prozac dose down to one pill a day, then one pill a week, and when I finally stoped, I experienced a week of mania and mental overwhelm that really freaked my husband out. I have since learned that this is a normal drug reaction when coming off the meds, and is the cause of many people going back on the drugs, because they just can't break through those symptoms into a well balanced state of mind.
I made it through the wall of symptoms and spent a year just letting my body balance out after fourteen months of toxic chemicals blasting through my body and mind.
During the intervening Seventeen and a half years I have not taken one psychiatric pill, even though I have had people, mostly professionals, but also some family members, say that they thought I should have been medicated all of these years. During each of my four pregnancies since the psychosis, I had so much fear and panic thrust in my direction from well meaning friends and family each time we announced that we were expecting again. They were so alarmed that I was planning to have another baby, so afraid that I would lose my mind again, and how could I possibly give birth and then take good care of my baby without being medicated???
The whole Brooke Shields/Tom Cruise anti depressant fight was such a big deal to me, as the two sides battled it out in the public airwaves. I spent some quality time on the New York Times Discussion board after Brooke wrote her op-ed.
As I was sharing my story on that site a female psychiatrist called me a "dangerous anecdote". These past two years since that online debate I have chuckled to myself, "Jen, you are a "dangerous anecdote", unlike the scientific professionals out there in psycho land who double blind study everything so methodically. Well, you know what? They don't know their asses from their elbows, and the recent stories in the media are further proof of that fact.
Its a topsy turvey world.
I guess the main thing I would like to share in this post is that I give my Heavenly Father all of the credit for helping me through these past two decades. It would have been easy for us to justify to ourselves that I was just not healthy enough to be a mother to a large family, and to stop having babies after our first daughter was born. It would have been so simple to just keep taking whatever med my psychiatrist had prescribed for whatever symptom I had at the time and accept my fate as a mentally ill person. It would have been easy and smooth and I would have received so much sympathy and empathy from my family, friends, and peers who were also being medicated out the yin yang for post partum mental illness.
But I have a soul. I have a spirit. I have a heart filled with passion and hope and love. My eternal soul wanted to fly free, filled with hope and claiming all of the rights and joys of motherhood that were available if Paul and I could only conquer our fear and take a flying Faith Leap into the unknown. The unknown, marked by briars, and pit falls, and scorn, and terror. When Andrea Yates murdered her five children while on a full dose of effexor, I can honestly say that was the low point for me these past 20 years. We had been talking about having a fifth baby, and I felt like my life was really coming together. That story ripped open the scab, and the festering wound of our past came bubbling up, overwhelming both Paul and I.
We did conceive Ben a few months after that story hit the airwaves, and thankfully I was not disabled emotionally by all of the rhetoric being flung around by the news media. They were all obssesed with her husband, blaming him for her psychosis and the deaths of the children. Very, very few people, even now, blame her violent murders on the drugs.
I finally turned off the television and stopped reading the news on the internet during my pregnancy and just sheltered myself from the rage that was spewing. It was a difficult time.
But now that the truth is more fully being exposed about the psychiatric profession and the bogus studies on their dope, my heart just bleeds for the unnecesary pain of so many families. When I think about the individuals who have been court ordered to eat these drugs for the "mood disorders" and the wall of pain that has resulted in death, divorce, disability, and long term emotional pain, I just want to scream.
All of you lawyers, judges, doctors, social workers, "Professionals" who made sure that millions of Americans were doped to death in the various mental hospitals and prisons. The school children who have been killed by classmates high on drugs, the children in foster care who have been overwhelmingly doped, the mothers and father suffering from birth trauma who lost their minds while sleep deprived and suffering from post traumatic stress during medicalized birth, who then turned to psychiatric drugs to fix everything and then found themselves inside of a nightmare that never stopped. The whole big picture just makes me want to vomit.
I wrote my book, A Mothers Journey to share the tips and practices that helped me PREVENT post partum emotional illness these past four pregnancies. The number one preventive measure is to focus everything you have on making sure Momma SLEEPS. My rule for myself is to get one three hour chunk of deep REM sleep during a 24 hour period. I know that if I can get that sleep I will not lose touch with reality.
I also have many other tips and insights in the book, it is available on my web site here.
Anti depressants double the level of cortisol in the blood with just one DOSE, this high level of cortisol leads to a condition called REM Sleep Disorder. High Levels of Cortisol in the blood make it more difficult to achieve REM sleep. SO, taking anti-depressants is the absolute WORST thing you can take if you are a new mother getting very little sleep.
Side effects of cortisol: As you read these side effects, think about how horrifying it would be to take care of a new born babe while feeling these feelings:
"A single, 30 mg dose of Prozac — that's a pill and a half — given to someone who has never taken the drug before, and who never takes it again, will double his or her cortisol levels.
Why is this significant? Research indicates that high cortisol levels cause:
Brain damage.
Cushing's Syndrome, characterized by a hump at the top of the spine, rounded body with smaller arms and legs, round face, like you would see with Down's Syndrome, and emotional instability. Moods can fluctuate from degrees of euphoria or mania, and full psychosis, to the depths of depression.
Other problems associated with Cushing’s Syndrome include:
Irritability.
Decreased ability to handle stress.
Decreased glucose tolerance, which often develops into hypoglycemia and diabetes.
Muscle weakness, brought on by potassium loss and / or the actual metabolism — or wasting — of muscle mass, capillary weakness, brought on by protein loss, and poor wound healing.
Bone demineralization and susceptibility to fractures, due to decreased bone mineral, and calcium in the urine.
Retarded bone growth in children, probably for the same reasons.
Edema, renal disorders, fluid retention around the face and eyes. Hypertension, from sodium and water retention.
Protruding abdominal cavity, which is why both men and women begin to look pregnant after using these drugs for a while.
Girdle obesity.
Increased production of androgen steroids, resulting in abnormal mammary gland function in men, even to the point of producing milk, and masculinizing of features in women, including excess hair growth on their face, neck, chest, abdomen and thighs.
Acne.
Peptic ulcers.
Decreased or depressed immune system, and suppressed inflammation response, which can mask some very serious infections.
These are just a few of the things that can happen as a result of the increase of cortisol from these drugs.
When you're literally doubling your cortisol levels on a daily basis, your body is completely deteriorating. I can't think of anything more damaging to the body — or the brain — than that huge increase of cortisol."
Here are links to a couple of web sites devoted to mothers who have died, mostly suicides, while psychotic or depressed.
In remembrance: Mothers and Babies who have died while Mom was psychotic
Beth, A Story of Post Partum Psychosis
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 8:34 AM