The following is a great post called "The Shame of Postpartum Depression" written by Momma Steph over at MomSquawk:

According to an article in Psychiatric Times, postpartum depression and psychosis are often missed by practitioners. Around 10-15% of new mothers will be diagnosed with postpartum depression (not to be confused with “baby blues”, which affects around 80%), and less than 1% of new mothers reportedly experience postpartum psychosis.

But postpartum depression may be more prevalent than thought, because women are reluctant to reveal the symptoms, Dr. [Phillip J.] Resnick said. Fearing of falling short of society’s ideal of motherhood, women may hold back from telling their husbands. And many fear that if they tell a doctor or social worker about their depression, their baby might be taken away, he said.

Gee… women who are blindsided by postpartum mental disorders aren’t likely to fill anyone in voluntarily? YA THINK?! “You know, honey, I can’t seem to stop obsessing about putting the baby in the dishwasher. Isn’t that odd? I guess we should get takeout. Why are you looking at me like that?”

I wonder if other undiagnosed women got hit with PPD as I did – in such a bizarre and scary fashion that it didn’t even occur to me that I’d been hit. I thought women with PPD hated their babies, or cried all the time, or didn’t feel like leaving the house. I loved my baby fiercely, didn’t cry much at all, and didn’t at all shy away from leaving the house – many evenings I headed down the road, clutching the baby, making a beeline for my husband’s office, if only to intercept him partway through his walk home and hand off our spawn so that I’d know he was safe. Safe from the dishwasher.

Had I known that intrusive thoughts are a fairly common symptom of PPD, I probably would have told someone. And I’m certain that the obsessions would have been much less severe, more easily laughed off and dismissed. As it was, I just thought I was going crazy, and that admitting it would make it worse, and might cost me my child. So I decided to just use all my mental strength to keep it together. And I made a pact with myself that if I ever found myself in real danger of harming the baby, I’d kill myself first, as a pre-emptive move.

Yes, the unclouded bliss of new motherhood, indeed!

Some facts on infanticide, from the article:

About 40% of mothers with postpartum depression have thoughts about killing their child, Dr. Resnick said. And for depressed mothers of “colicky” babies-babies not soothed even when fed, changed, and held-that figure climbs to 70%, he said.

Of the mothers whose depression develops into psychosis, as it did with Yates, about 4% will harm their children if the psychosis is not treated, Dr. Resnick said.

This is why education and screening are so important. I’m a well-read person, I pored over all the pregnancy books I could get my hands on, but nothing prepared me to recognize PPD. For me, bad thoughts = Andrea Yates. My only available coping mechanism (so I believed) was denial.

I’m praying that the MOTHERS Act gets out of committee and onto the floor of Congress. Its stated purpose:

To ensure that new mothers and their families are educated about postpartum depression, screened for symptoms, and provided with essential services, and to increase research at the National Institutes of Health on postpartum depression.

I had great healthcare, by all obvious standards, and I was in the dark about the signs of postpartum depression. How many other women are uninformed? How many mothers and babies are at risk?

If and when the legislation makes its way onto the floor, we should be ready for idiotic hissy fits like this: “PPD is made up by whiney mothers and screening is a grand conspiracy by the patriarchy” essay (link courtesy of Katherine at Postpartum Progress). Debate over the proposed law is one thing. But denying the existence of PPD, and further shaming women who may be suffering from it by calling them weak, is unconscionable.