What do you need to know to want to help?

• Postpartum depression is a real and very painful illness.

• Fifteen to 20% of all new mothers get postpartum depression or anxiety, nearly a million each year in the US alone. It could be you, your sister, your daughter, your son’s partner, your best friend. It could have been your own mom.

• We don’t just get PPD in the United States. It’s common almost everywhere.

• Only a small percentage of women with PPD ever get the treatment they need to fully recover.

• The children of moms who go untreated can end up with mental illness as adults. They can have developmental and behavioral problems as children. Because there are effective treatments, there is NO REASON FOR THIS TO HAPPEN.

• Every family deserves a strong start.

That’s it. That’s the story in the simplest form possible. You should help because every person with a mother knows how important her health, or lack thereof, was and is to the health of the whole family.

We work every day to spread awareness of postpartum depression. We work to make sure as many pregnant and new mothers as possible recognize the symptoms, know they are not alone and know where and how to get help. As much as we can, we hold their hands through the process.

We need your help to continue to do that. And to do even more. Our goal for Postpartum Progress in 2013 is to translate what we have done so successfully online into offline materials, the kind that clinicians continually ask us for so that they can share them with their patients. Today, on October 5th — the day on which more children are born each year than any other — please donate, and if you can, ask others to do the same. Thank you.

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