Tonight on ABC’s "World News Tonight", they covered the new law in the state of New Jersey requiring every new mother to be screened for depression after birth. I’d give you a link to the story directly, but it’s not up yet on the ABC website.

The story focused on the fact that physicians in NJ must ask new mothers a set of questions before they leave the hospital and again a few weeks later (I’m assuming at the 6-week checkup). What really burned me up is that the angle of the coverage was that the law is controversial. They interviewed a woman (a professor and physician at Northeastern University, I think) saying that you shouldn’t dictate by law which medical conditions doctors should screen for. Playing the devil’s advocate, she asked whether PPD is worse than other conditions people may suffer, like thyroid disease, that aren’t required by law to be screened. I suppose I can see her point, but the law is less of a medical issue to me than an educational issue. Here’s why I think this law is a good one:

• Who else is going to inform new mothers about these illnesses but their doctors? Currently, I believe women are not informed properly by their obstetricians about the symptoms of postpartum mood disorders and what can really happen. If it’s mentioned at all, they usually just state that you might get weepy and feel extra tired and sad, but that you’ll most likely get over it in a few weeks. No one ever mentioned intrusive thoughts to me – not a book, or an ob/gyn or a primary care physician, not a birthing class teacher, not anyone. So instead of thinking I had a postpartum mood disorder, I simply thought I had gone crazy and wasn’t meant to be a mother. If we’re not educated enough to identify the illness for ourselves, a medical professional has got to do it.
• Because of the shame of this illness, even if we were informed we might not tell anyone unless probed by a helpful professional.
• This isn’t a primary care physician or a general practitioner we’re talking about, so the problem of screening for PPD and not screening for other illnesses the general population might experience seems to me to be a strange argument. They’re simply asking OB/GYN’s to ask about symptoms of an illness mothers may suffer, just like they check our blood pressure and the heartbeat of our babies while pregnant. They watch us for preeclampsia and gestational diabetes, so why shouldn’t they watch us for postpartum mood disorders?

I worry that coverage like what appeared on the news tonight will simply serve to muddy the minds of our Congress and retard even further the passing of the Melanie Blocker-Stokes Bill. Is it so controversial that it’s not worth potentially saving the lives of a mother from suicide or children from infanticide? It seems to me that New Jersey is simply pushing doctors to do what they should have been doing anyway, but haven’t done because they’re uncomfortable having to talk about these things. I am grateful to New Jersey for being so proactive.