Motherhood is Not a Medical Disorder

Jul 13 2009

This recent article in Time Magazine discusses the Mother’s Act, legislation initiated in response to the story of Melanie Blocker-Stokes, who leaped to her death from her hotel room in Chicago three months after the birth of her daughter. Officially known as the Melanie Blocker-Stokes Post Partum Depression Research and Care Act, but referred to as the Mother’s Act, this legislation would require screening of all women post-partum for depression.

The problem with this is the attitude that being a mother is a risk factor for a psychiatric disorder. First of all, there is no evidence that women without a prior history of anxiety and depression have any increased risk of getting post partum depression. So to screen all moms as if giving birth is a risk factor for depression is ridiculous. And whenever you start screening the general population, you get into problems with over-identification of people and an increase in the number of people that go on antidepressants. I am opposed to mandatory screenings of the population, like Teenscreen, which are bonanzas for the pharmaceutical industry, but a major intrusion into the privacy and autonomy of American citizens. In the case of Melanie Blocker-Stokes, she had already been treated with multiple courses of psychotropic drugs and electro-convulsive therapy, so there is no reason to think that her life would have been saved by “screening”. This legislation is typical of much that comes out of an individual tragedy, that results in an intrusion into the personal lives of individuals and the further relinqueshment of individual freedoms to the government.

The article quotes psychiatrist Katherine Wisner MD as stating ”how can you be opposed to something that will help mothers?” But an examination of the fine print from one of her articles here shows that she is on speakers bureaus for Pfizer and Lilly, makers of Zoloft and Prozac, respectively.

In it is quoted Amy Philo, a leader of the coalition against the Mother’s Act. Her experience was that after her baby choked on his vomit and needed emergency treatment, she became increasingly anxious about his health. Her doctor gave her Zoloft, telling her that it would make both her and her baby happier. After treatment with Zoloft, she started having alarming suicidal thoughts and thoughts about hurting her baby. When she weaned herself off of Zoloft she felt fine. This experience led her to start the United Non-Profits and Individuals for Truth and Ethics (UNITE), a coalition opposed to the Mother’s Act (click here to sign their petition). Time magazine recently corrected a statement that she had post-partum depression and developed thoughts of harm before taking Zoloft, which wasn’t true.

[update: read more on the debate that arose after this post here at Amy Philo's The Bitter Pill blog and my responses to John Grohol's attack on this post ("Bremner makes false claims...") here and here.]

Tags: Amy Philo, Depression, Doug Bremner, John Grohol, major depression, Melanie Blocker-Stokes, Mother's Act, Post-Partum Depression, Time magazine, UNITE

Filed in Antidepressants, Depression, Medications in Children, Women's health, pharmaceutical industry | Doug Bremner

54 Comments

By Dan, July 13, 2009 @ 8:44 pm

Great post.

Those disease state screenings are conducted by often front groups, wearing a mask of a support group. Pharma makes more money if the boundaries of a medical condition, if it is in fact a condition at all, are expanded, along with the market for a particular medical issue.

Post partum depression, which I’m quite ignorant about the nature of the occurence, does in fact correlate strongly with the mothers socio-economic status. The lower it is, the more severe the PPD will be, some studies have shown.
By Amy Philo, July 13, 2009 @ 8:57 pm

http://uniteforlife.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/new-fax-campaign/ This has a great list of points specifically referencing the legislation which are indisputably valid critiques of the current version of the bill. There are no safeguards to combat the rampant corruption in psychiatric research and the bill would essentially market a disorder on a grand scale. Aside from that there are about four lines in the bill on research (aside from the paragraph about researching outcomes on post-abortive women) and a couple of pages on PSAs and services. Anyone who says the bill is only for research is sadly mistaken.
By Gina Pera, July 13, 2009 @ 11:36 pm

I don’t know….I’ve checked out some of the groups who are heading the opposition to this bill, about which I know very little. And I’m inclined to say that anything these fear-mongering groups are against — with their ludicrous “there is no proof that there is such a thing as mental illness” ranting — I’m for.

The fact is, many women do suffer from hormonal changes after birth, especially, I would imagine, with these highly unnatural Caesarean deliveries and short hospital stays. (Why is no one complaining about the skyrocketing numbers of those? Do you think this has no effect on baby or mother?) These can create adverse changes in the brain.

This is to say nothing of the outrageous hormonal rollercoaster that fertility cowboy-doctors are creating in women — without having a clue as to short or long-term effects.

Moreover, new mothers are increasingly living away from extended families, upon whom they can rely on for help. Some other cultures treat recently delivered mothers like queens; we boot them out of the hospital and back to work in short order.

Where does it say in these bills that medication is the first line of defense? Or is that just anti-pharma paranoia?

Years ago, a friend of mine with a young baby went into the bathroom and shot herself. In her postpartum depression, she had the distorted idea that if she were dead, her workaholic husband would be forced to be home more with their two children. Too bad no one thought of screening for her before that happened.
By Amy Philo, July 14, 2009 @ 12:10 am

Gina if you are referring to my website, there is much talk about the subjectivity of the diagnosis of PPD on that website. Scientific studies show that the EPDS for example triples the number of women “diagnosed” and there is also much talk on my website about the other factors that can cause depressive symptoms. Pointing out that a psychological diagnosis is subjective is not paranoid.

In my particular case, I was labeled “at risk” based on a screening I was never told was being conducted on me. And in my case the “help” caused me to get placed on drugs to “prevent” PPD, drugs which made me insane.

So arguing that all women need to be screened because your friend shot herself is basically agreeing that whatever comes of the screening is fine because they wanted to help the moms. Since you said you know absolutely nothing about “these websites” namely my website, maybe you should spend some time on it before criticizing it, calling my articles rants and accusing me of anti-pharma paranoia. Having barely survived Zoloft, that’s a pretty extreme statement to make about me. Yes, I am simply paranoid and have no clue what I am talking about.

You would have to be extremely naive to believe that labeling women with depression will not lead to more use of drugs. Last year’s bill mentioned medication as a main treatment but we got that taken out.

Check out the New Jersey PPD website which tells women just what they need to do for PPD which is to take antidepressants even while breastfeeding for 9-12 months after symptoms go away. Gee, I wonder if any of the groups lining up to help with the PSAs could be those who promote drugs and don’t like the “anti-pharma” people. If you have a problem with anti-pharma, I guess that makes you pro-phamra which makes the argument that you don’t think meds will be prescribed seem just a little bit ridiculous.
By kimbriel, July 14, 2009 @ 12:18 am

Um, I had pretty much the worst Postpartum disorder out there (postpartum psychosis) and yet, no depression/anxiety during the pregnancy or any history of mental illness at all. Of course, I was commited and drugged. After ONE DAY of drugging, I developed early signs of tardive dyskenesia. I was never suicidal/homicidal, just severely sleep-deprived (14 days without sleep) and therefore disorganized and hallucinating.

Honestly? Do you honestly think that with these screening tests, their first suggestion will be, oh move closer to family? Maybe we’ll send someone out to cook your meals and clean your house? Here’s a foot massage?

If doctors want to ask women about their emotions and women want to share them, that’s a choice. After my hellish experiences, a doctor would be the LAST PERSON I would go to for emotional distress, and I’m sure as hell glad I had my baby before this crap was on the table. Maybe they should start screening infants for emotional problems, too. They cry all the time and the next minute they’re laughing. Sounds like bipolar to me.
By kimbriel, July 14, 2009 @ 12:19 am

Oh, and people DO talk about C-section rates and getting booted out of the hospital. It’s all over the internet if you look at natural birthing/history of birthing and motherhood websites.
By Gina Pera, July 14, 2009 @ 12:43 am

This is why we need solid research, by people qualified to conduct it.

We cannot make public-policy decisions based on the stories of people who have been diagnosed with mental health disorders and treated for them.

Sorry, but it’s true. Many mental health disorders limit objectivity, so these people are just not the best judges of what has been done to them and why. They can have their stories and they can share them. But we can’t make policy on this kind of hearsay and paranoia.

Okay, I’ve had enough of the anti-medication, anti-psychiatry, don’t-control-me crowd. It’s bad for my brain, and it seems to be swelling in ranks on the Internet. Good luck making your way in the dismal future that you are creating for others who could use — and would appreciate — legitimate psychiatric help, well administered.
By Amy Philo, July 14, 2009 @ 12:45 am

I put this together a while back, sort of a compilation of different realms of advice both for prevention and treatment of emotional / physical probelms that can occur which have depression as a symptom.
http://uniteforlife.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/preventing-and-treating-emotional-physical-problems-in-moms/

Feel free to add to the recommendations.
By Amy Philo, July 14, 2009 @ 12:52 am

Gina if your statement were true, then what would you say about those on the other side of the debate who have been “diagnosed” with mental disorders. Should they be “allowed” to make public policy decisions?

Gina do you think that watching your newborn baby almost die makes you mentally ill? Or are you saying that anyone who is opposed to psychiatric drugging of new mothers is mentally ill by default? Your brain is suffering because of reading about side effects of medications?

Perhaps you should check out this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnxuw2ufSug

I am sure that Matthew Schultz was a mentally ill baby and that’s why he died. Yes all these problems that we talk about with psychotropic drugs are made up by paranoid people. LOL

Doug I think you need a new illustration with a new type of LOLcat.
By Lydia Conrad, July 14, 2009 @ 1:08 am

I transferred from a home birth, and my babies were in the NICU, so they came to ask me if I was suicidal. So as if it was not bad enough that my babies were in the NICU, they wanted to take me to the psych ward (green oaks came to interview me) away from my babies and possibly drug me, when I were breastfeeding, and the nurses even came to give me blood pressure medication when my blood pressure was not high except from the stress of the event, I had to ask for a doctor (which was 5 hrs before she saw me) to keep them from discharging me AMA for refusing treatment.
By Amy Philo, July 14, 2009 @ 1:08 am

(I suppose that the FDA and Dr. Bremner must be mentally ill too for admitting to medication side effects. Perhaps even the NEJM, which documented Zoloft homicidality in children.)
By kimbriel, July 14, 2009 @ 1:33 am

Translation: Once you are labelled mentally ill, your life experience does not count, and your lack of objectivity is only further proof of your mental illness. GREAT ADVOCACY! I am so glad to have people like Gina Pera sticking up for the mentally ill.

Most current research is not objective, or well thought-out. I have read many journal articles where the science was backwards and just plain bad (and I know my science). Drugs that were used off-label en masse, then later proven to be completely ineffective, not beating the placebo… how many patients’ reports were ignored before they published just how ineffective the drug is? Because it was recommended by a “key opinion leader” the drug I have in mind (neurontin) is STILL being prescribed today.

God help you if you ever require mental health care. The World Health Organization came out with a study that shamans and witch doctors have better results than psychiatrists. In other words, if you feel yourself going nuts, fly to a remote location in the world, ’cause you have better luck with a guy with a bone through his nose than a westernized psychiatrist. And no, I don’t think Pharma’s money is the whole problem, I think a lot of it is just plain BAD doctoring.
By Mary, July 14, 2009 @ 8:29 am

Here is the comment I entered on the MOTHERS act petition website:
Diagnosing of depression is not sufficiently refined to truly identify those cases most in need of real intervention. There are too many ways to produce a ‘false positive’ in a postpartum mother: sleep deprivation, acute stress from adapting to the baby’s patterns, hormonal fluctuations that will stabilize on their own, without the need for treatment. Plus, if mothers are breastfeeding, we just don’t know the long range consequences of the presence of the drug and its metabolites in breast milk. Making postpartum psychotherapeutic support more widely available is the highly desirable alternative to the plan proposed by the MOTHERS Act.
By Lisa Van Syckel, July 14, 2009 @ 8:48 am

It is important for folks to know, that Mary Jo Codey, wife of NJ State Senator Richard Codey, was the force behind the Mother’s Act and the PCA’S in NJ. Mary Jo gave birth to her 1st child more than 21 years. Mary Jo claims to this day!!.. that she suffers from, and continues to be treated for pospartum depression. Id like to know who the crackpot Dr. is who continues to give her this diagnosis. And where is the scientific evidence to back up the contention that postpartum depression lingers for more then 20 years.
By skillsnotpills, July 14, 2009 @ 9:01 am

As I have asked this blog author, I think it is time that blog sites get some kind of statement of transparency from repeated commenters who need to clarify where they get their positions on issues, most specifically for those who may have a profit motive that should be stated, just for justification at the very least.

I think Dr Bremner is right on the mark, and I think it is time for those who are on their soapbooks screaming for this legislation to be passed make a statement of fact to why this legislation affects you or those near and dear. Some have, some haven’t.

As I said at Psych Central just before coming here, if you think pharmaceutical companies are not involved in some form with this legislation, I look forward to the facts forwarded to prove me wrong. The Time article seemed to miss those pharma links to Dr Wisner, and how convenient these are the two meds allegedly the safest to use in pregnancy.

Coincidence? Cluelessness on Time’s part? The kneejerk response to save the few to put the many at risk? Honest people have nothing to hide in making statements of transparency. In the end, I’d rather be vilified for the truth and doing what is right, than glorified for doing what was wrong or convenient but not responsible.

You, the readers, decide!
By Lisa Van Syckel, July 14, 2009 @ 9:03 am

Dr. Bremner,

I personally witnessed a Labor and Delivery Nurse, at Hunterdon Medical Center in Flemington NJ, administer a postpartum depression screening test to a young woman who was in active labor,and would like add that this young woman was in the middle of a contraction. This was no screening, it was an interrogation of a vulnerable young woman.
By Lisa Van Syckel, July 14, 2009 @ 9:32 am

Do Grandmothers suffer from postpartum depression, anxiety, ocd, and being paranoid?

Am I nervous and concerned when walking up and down a flight stairs while carrying my grandson in my arms,.. Absolutely.

Do I often wash his hands and face,.. and mine often,.. absolutely.

Do I often check on him while he is sleeping,.. absolutely.

Do I watch, and make sure, that my grandson is sitting in his High Chair, while eating a baby cookie, watching him closely, so he doesnt choke,.. absolutey.. Why?.. because the manufacturer’s label told me to do so!

Am I paranoid if I take my car, with an infant seat in it, to be checked by our local police dept to make sure it is correctly and securely fastened. I guess I am.

Do I make sure hat all electrical outlets are covered? cabinets have safety locks? Do I make sure there are no items lying around, that he can picup, put in his moth and possibly choke on them,.. absolutely.

When he smiles at me,.. when he laughs, and crawls for the first time, does it make me smile? Does it fill my heart with Joy!!.. absolutely.

Mentall Ill,.. I guess I am. Thank You God for the human emotions you have given me!!
By Samantha, July 14, 2009 @ 10:24 am

If these pharma companies really want to make money from antidepressants, they should do annual screenings on VA personnel.I’m just saying…
By Michele Krone, July 14, 2009 @ 5:26 pm

I had a very similar thing happen to me but the medication worked in my case. The problem as I see it is that sometimes, like in the case of Amy it doesn’t. we need to make sure these drug companies are held responsible. If someone is suffering from PPD they should make sure the medication they get doesn’t make them worse. That is ridiculous. Us women need to units against these big corporations. If you sell a product it better work or we’ll sure your silly but off. sorry I get carried away. Bottom line is that women need the information to make the choices and right now we are not getting it.
By Art Coor, July 14, 2009 @ 5:28 pm

You are not crazy if you really believe its true
By skillsnotpills, July 14, 2009 @ 8:14 pm

Dr Bremner, beware, Dr Grohol at Psych Central has challenged you, and I have to ask what his agenda is in being so outspoken on this issue.

Statements of transparency are so hard to make when it could cloud the intention, hmmm? I doubt he is in the pocket of someone to directly benefit from this proposed legislation, BUT, you have to wonder.
By Stephany, July 14, 2009 @ 8:39 pm

I signed the petition against mandatory screening of pregnant women, and am not surprised over psych central’s typical pro-med blast at Bremner. He(Grohol) called Dawdy “polarizing” though gave him a “Journalist Award” recently.

Shelly Hart,(google her name) who had a child born with a hole in the heart from taking PAXIL while pregnant, is just one story of heartbreak as her baby fell victim to the drugs and she is in severe withdrawals that has nearly taken her life.

It’s all about choice.

Choosing to medicate will not happen if the mother is deemed (and possibly erroneously)depressed, and placed on medications or else.

This is a cut and dry topic for me at least, and leaving my comment here leave me open for scrutiny, but that doesn’t matter! I’ve been viciously attacked by pro-med ppl before, just the other day as a matter of fact.

My life experience and my child who has been harmed by psych meds is my base to jump from, we all have one I suppose.
By Dan, July 15, 2009 @ 10:06 am

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/07/14/bremners-false-claims-about-postpartum-depression/
By Fred Baughman, MD, July 16, 2009 @ 3:44 pm

To Afford Health Care For All, Repeal “Biological” Psychiatry Beginning With Mother’s Act (1089 words)

Fred A. Baughman Jr, MD, Neurologist

Author: The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes “Patients” Out of Normal Children
http://www.Trafford.com

July 16, 2009

Massachusetts Takes a Step Back From Health Care for All (The New York Times, by Abby Goodnough, July 15, 2000, A10) tells us that in trying to do the right thing, Massachusetts has had to retreat and eliminate coverage for 30,000 legal immigrants in order to meet their budget. As they set about to do the right and humane thing—to provide basic medical care for all–Massachusetts was surely going to have to look critically at cost overruns and fraud in medical care that got them, and the US as a whole, in such a fix—so bad that the system consumes twice as much per year (>$7500) per citizen as in UK and Western European countries while leaving 48 million nationwide without insurance and who knows how many underinsured, frightened and looking bankruptcy in the eye with their next illness. I would remind one and all that medicine is the art and science of diagnosing and treating diseases, and that diseases are physical abnormalities—gross (a mass visible to the naked eye or palpable), microscopic (cancer cells from a biopsy or ‘Pap’ smear) or chemical (elevated blood sugar as in diabetes or phenylalanine as in PKU). In the Time’s article the sample patient, one who might lose her coverage, was one Laura Porto who had come from Venezuela for whom loss of coverage, we are told, would end her treatment for bipolar disorder which included weekly therapy, monthly consultations with a psychiatrist and, of course, medication. What Massachusetts and the rest of the nation has not woken up to is that psychiatry masquerades as a branch of the medical profession but is not because not a single psychiatric ‘disorder’ in their ever-burgeoning DSM is an actual disorder /disease verifiable by a physician demonstrating a gross, microscopic or chemical disorder. To Massachusetts and the nation I announce that if we are going to provide even essential health care for a nation now bankrupted and deprived of it by the non-system we have today, we are going to have to start by acknowledging as most physicians know, but will not say, that “biological” psychiatry –that which consumes tens of billions of healthcare dollars each year is the not a legitimate branch of medicine, but instead, is the biggest health care fraud of all time. And now, no longer content with diagnosing and drugging one in five—20 percent of US school children—most with the entirely bogus Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder–ADHD, and 1.5 to 2.0 million adults this label as well, now they seek to foist TeenScreen and the Mother’s Act upon the nation with no abnormality/disease to be found but only to do the will of the master that wholly owns and operates them—Big Pharma. Think of it, such psychological screening devices as TeenScreen have been shown to have case-finding rates of 50-60 percent. Who will be left who is not on psychiatric drugs? How many more billions in health care dollars–those needed for real diseases–will psychiatric drugging consume?

Recently I helped Brian Verbeek, Canadian father of a psychiatrically- “diagnosed,” “drugged,” 12 year-old boy draft a letter to Health Canada–Canada’s counterpart of our FDA. In an uncommonly truthful, frank, reply dated Nov 10, 2008 Mr. Verbeek was told: “For mental/psychiatric disorders in general, including depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and ADHD, there are no confirmatory gross, microscopic or chemical abnormalities that have been validated for objective physical diagnosis. Rather, diagnoses of possible mental conditions are described strictly in terms of patterns of symptoms…” Saying “diagnoses of possible mental conditions are described strictly in terms of patterns of symptoms” is a clear admission that such diagnoses are wholly subjective and are not diseases, disorders, illnesses, sicknesses, syndromes, abnormal phenotypes or abnormal genotypes. Furthermore, the term “disorder,” means “a disturbance of function, structure, or both,” and is thus, the equivalent of physical abnormality/disease. “Disorder” is a term often used by psychiatrists because the lay public does not generally understand it including their patients, and allows them to speak of diseases obliquely when they do not have the decency or honesty to forthrightly state “disease” and “no disease.” Even the FDA reluctantly, obliquely, confessed to me there is no such thing as a psychiatric disease. On March 12, 2009, Donald Dobbs of the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research reluctantly admitted: “I consulted with the FDA new drug review division responsible for approving psychiatric drug products and they concurred with the response you enclosed from Health Canada.”

The federal government, like Massachusetts before it, will have to commit to providing essential health care to all citizens reforming our rife-with-greed-and-fraud health care system as we go.
There being no bigger or more conspicuous a fraud than “biological” psychiatry with its invented, contrived “chemical imbalances” demanding “chemical balancers”—pills, and their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual having swollen from 152 “disorders” in 1952 to 374 today—not one an actual disease—this is where the cost cutting must start.

Such roll-backs may prove difficult and even onerous to Congress, the NIMH, FDA, DEA, NIDA, etc., who have validated the growth of ‘biological’ psychiatry and its supplier and chieftain Big Pharma, one “chemical imbalance” and one ‘chemical balancer” at a time culminating with the greatest gift of all: “parity” for psychiatry with all the rest of medical practice; “parity” when there is no such thing as a psychiatric “disease.” And then they wonder why health care is bankrupted. Or, perhaps, with their own cradle-to-grave health care guaranteed, maybe they don’t wonder at all.

I urge them here and now not to foist never-essential, never-for-a-discernible-disease psychiatric drugs on women of child-bearing age who (1) might conceive at any moment, (2) who have conceived but don’t know it, (3) who have conceived and know it, or (4) who have a nursing infant or newborn.

When I started in medicine we took every precaution to avoid non-essential drugs in all women of childbearing age. This was the sixties, the era of the thalidomide disaster, the era when a pharmacologist at the FDA by the name of Frances Kelsey could call for a stop the marketing of thalidomide in the US and gain support of her agency.

What better place to start a rollback of the fraud of ‘biological’/‘chemical imbalance’ psychiatry than by denunciation and veto of the Mother’s Act—today.
By kimbriel, July 16, 2009 @ 5:16 pm

Dr. Baughman, I am a huge fan. Thank you for your tireless work and being a voice of sanity in the over-medicalization of childhood and the ADHD fraud. My neurologist and I are constantly quoting you and it’s so refreshing to see someone who really gets it.
By Doug Bremner, July 17, 2009 @ 4:07 pm

The Mommy Wars continue: two more posts on sidebar and here at The Bitter Pill. http://tiny.cc/7tXcu
By Kristin, July 20, 2009 @ 12:17 pm

I think it’s too funny that Dr. Bremner and the Scientologists are on the same page in their opposition to the Mothers Act.

I’m a mother who had PPD after my first baby. No history of depression. Not poor, master’s degree to my name, great husband, wanted the baby very much. Reluctantly took Zoloft, while continuing to nurse. Got better (not sure if it was due to Zoloft, hormone readjustment, passage of time, improved social support, whatever) and weaned myself off of it AMA after three months. I’m now encountering recommendations by health professionals and some older-generation family members to go on Zoloft again (Child #2 is 8 months old). I probably won’t go on it again, preferring psychotherapy and other coping strategies. HOWEVER, I think screening isn’t bad! I think all y’all should be working, first and foremost, on cleaning up the medical profession across the board, not just psychiatry (and I would guess that you are, indeed, focusing primarily on that mission) and not focus on preventing screenings. You’re kind of like those anti-abortion activists (many, but not all) who don’t actively work to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but just hold up signs at abortion clinics. Reality: many postpartum women get depressed. What *positive* action are you gonna take based on that reality?

I agree that there is overprescription of psych meds, that money is tied up with all of that. But if there are women who need help (some of them probably would benefit from meds; some would benefit from peer-to-peer support, some would benefit from professional psychotherapy), why hinder their identification? Do you oppose screenings of diabetics or those with high blood pressure, too, just because some of those folks will end up taking a pill? (I am of the opinion that WAY too many Americans take pills for health conditions — like diabetes and high blood pressure — that result from their own poor choices, but I don’t oppose increased screenings for those conditions.

Thanks for giving me a lot to think about. I think both sides in this argument have valid points.

Peace,
Kristin

I questioned a previous comment that said a woman who took antidepressants during pregnancy gave birth to a baby with a hole in its heart. I have a hole in my heart (I’m 40), and during the process of having it diagnosed in 2003, I learned that up to 28 percent of the population has such holes. How can we be sure that this baby’s ASD was due to the antidepressant. (Again, I am not trying to cheerlead for psych meds — I’m just askin’.)
By Kristin, July 20, 2009 @ 12:20 pm

Geez — sorry for all my punctuation errors. My comment reads poorly.
By Amy Philo, July 20, 2009 @ 1:29 pm

Kristin how can you ever be sure of anything that a Scientologist says. After all any words that come from their mouths must be wrong, and any one else who says them must be wrong too. As for anti-abortion activists holding up signs outside abortion clinics it’s called a protest. People who survived psychiatric drugs and shock and forced treatment do that too. They stood outside the APA convention, the World Psychiatric meetings, and outside the same hospital where I was locked up 5 years after the fact as Ray Sandford was being forcibly electroshocked for profit.

A lot of people have holes in their hearts – ok. Are you referring to Julie Edgington’s baby? I am not sure which of the many many dead babies or babies born with cardiac defects / PPH you’re talking about.
By Amy Philo, July 20, 2009 @ 1:38 pm

By the way protest is positive. I’ve been involved in a few protests over the years myself on other issues.

Protesting abortion clinics, many of those people have been able to convince mothers not to kill their kids, and in turn some of these women also became Christians. Which sounds like a way more positive thing to me than having the abortion.

And to address your other argument, people who protest abortion clinics also work to promote adoption, natural family planning etc. Not all anti-abortion people are anti-birth control pills and anti-condoms either. I would be one of those who does not take a radical stand on birth control against the use of contraception, although I have never protested at a clinic.

Gettting back to the issue of The MOTHERS Act, I suggest you check out my blog entry from this morning. People on our side are from all walks of life, whether they are health freedom activists, natural pregnancy / birth educators, health practitioners in alternative medicine, survivors etc. Even people who use psychotropic drugs are on our side because they are for informed consent and oversight of govt. programs, two things missing from this bill.

You act like we don’t care about PPD or suffering of women. Nothing could be further from the truth. We simply oppose the medicalization of motherhood and promote the healthy development of the baby first and foremost with the healthy treatment of the mother being the only way to protect the baby from the dangers of psychotropic drugs.
By Amy Philo, July 20, 2009 @ 1:51 pm

http://uniteforlife.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/how-long-til-my-soul-gets-it-right/#comment-2352 There is the link.
By Amy Philo, July 20, 2009 @ 1:59 pm

http://www.box.net/shared/ogz24gv9nt Here is an article I wrote last summer (coincidentally just as Indiana Delahunty was being born) on The MOTHERS Act. It has stuff in there about the FDA warnings for pregnant women, and Julie Edgington’s stuff starts on page 3, if that is the mother you are referring to.
By Amy Philo, July 20, 2009 @ 2:05 pm

http://momsandmeds.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/breastmilkexposure/ This has info on breastfeeding and antidepressants for you, Kristin. Good luck.
By Evelyn Pringle, July 20, 2009 @ 7:31 pm

Kristin says:

“I think it’s too funny that Dr. Bremner and the Scientologists are on the same page in their opposition to the Mothers Act.”

What is that supposed to mean?

I think every blogger who brings up Scientology should identify their religious faith for the record.

As I’ve said many times, I am not a fan of any organized religion, and disagree with the practices of many, but I fail to see what religious beliefs have to do with opposing the Mothers Act legislation.

For instance, I always thought it was ridiculous that Catholics were not allowed to eat meat on Fridays (when I was young), get divorced, or use birth control (to name a few).

However, being my father was firm believer in the Catholic religion, I never felt the need to belittle his faith. I simply decided not to be a Catholic when I grew up.

Nor do I feel the need to preface peoples’ name with their religion in a low-ball attempt to win a debate.

I disagree with the beliefs of many other religions but who am I to say which one of the world’s millions of religions is correct.

Trying to use Scientology as a smoke-screen is really getting old.

Anyone who is a member of an organized religion should be required to identify that affiliation if they want to make Scientology an issue in this debate.
By Doug Bremner, July 20, 2009 @ 8:21 pm

I agree. I don’t see why scientology is any more unbelievable than those who think that loaves of bread fell from the sky in the deserts of Sinai, or that God talked to their leader from a burning bush and told him to go and kill people. Or that Jesus went to Utah and that an ancient race left golden tablets in upstate New York that were only ever seen by one person. I mean I thought we had freedom of religion in this country (not to mention freedom of speech, or at least we did before the last presidential administration). I guess that means the freedom to impose YOUR religion on others whenever you want to, but use OTHER religions to discredit not only the believers of that religion, but the ideas of anyone who may have similar opinions, even if not a member of that religion (which I am not). Maybe they want us to subscribe to the religion of the almighty dollar, or profits before people, which seems to be the dominant religion of this country these days.
By Amy Philo, July 21, 2009 @ 2:58 am

I could not agree more. Freedom of religion is a fundamental right in this country. Amen!
By Anonymous, July 30, 2009 @ 12:24 am

On a closing note:

Warning signs missed in baby dismemberment case
AP

By MICHELLE ROBERTS and PAUL J. WEBER, Associated Press Writer Michelle Roberts And Paul J. Weber, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jul 28, 7:07 pm ET

SAN ANTONIO – The warning signs were there. Otty Sanchez, a schizophrenic with a history of hospitalizations, wasn’t taking medication and was depressed after her son’s birth, the boy’s father said. A simple request seemed to set her off, alarming him and his family.

Yet, the 33-year-old woman was staying in a house where she had access to samurai swords. Child welfare officials were never called.

Instead, Sanchez’s troubles became apparent to authorities when they found her before dawn Sunday screaming that she had killed her baby. Her 3 1/2-week-old son was dismembered in a scene so gruesome that police were left shaken.

“Maybe we missed” warning signs, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said. “I don’t know.”

Sanchez remained hospitalized Tuesday recovering from self-inflicted cuts to her torso and an attempt to slice her own throat. The former home health care worker is charged with capital murder and is being held on $1 million bond. Calls to relatives Tuesday were not immediately returned and it was not clear whether Sanchez had an attorney.

Authorities said Sanchez tried killing herself after butchering her newborn son, Scott Wesley Buchholz-Sanchez, with a steak knife and two swords while her sister and two nieces, ages 5 and 7, slept in another room.

Sanchez told police — who described a scene so horrifying that investigators could barely speak to one another — that the devil made her kill, mutilate and eat parts of her only child.

Scott W. Buchholz, the infant’s father who met Sanchez six years ago while they were studying to be pharmacists assistants, said he isn’t buying it. He said although his girlfriend had postpartum depression and told him a week before the killing that she was schizophrenic, she didn’t appear unstable.

He wants prosecutors to pursue the death penalty.

“She killed my son. She should burn in hell,” Buchholz, 33, told The Associated Press.

Otty Sanchez’s medical history is muddled. A family member said Sanchez had been undergoing psychiatric treatment and that a hospital called looking for her several months ago. Gloria Sanchez, Otty’s aunt, said her niece had been “in and out of a psychiatric ward.”

In May 2008, Otty Sanchez’s mother, Manuela Sanchez, called police after her daughter didn’t return from a trip to Austin, saying she was concerned about her daughter’s safety. Manuela Sanchez told police she suspected Otty was into drugs and specifically told police she wasn’t suffering from any mental issues.

Buchholz, who is himself schizophrenic and takes six anti-psychotic and anti-convulsive medications, said Otty had postpartum depression and had been going to regular counseling sessions after the birth, but refused to take prescription medication for her depression. Still, he said she seemed fine.

“She seemed like a a very caring, loving mother. She held him, she breast fed him. She did everything for him that was nice,” he said.

On July 20, Sanchez was taken to the hospital for depression and released less than a day later, Buchholz said. Sanchez told him that she was schizophrenic and was going to live with her parents and sister. Sanchez was arrested at her mother’s house, where police found her and the dead infant.

Five days later, on Saturday, Sanchez brought “Baby Scotty” for a visit but stormed out after he asked for a copy of the birth certificate and other documents, Buchholz said. Buchholz called 911 to report that Sanchez stormed out and drove away with the infant without properly restraining him in the car, and deputies investigated it as a disturbance.

The deputy took a report but could do little else, said Bexar County Sheriff Chief Deputy Dale Bennett.

“If this guy had given us an indication that she had postpartum depression, or mental defects she was suffering from, we may have addressed it differently,” he said.

Buchholz said he may have told the deputy Sanchez was depressed, but that he wasn’t sure.

While schizophrenia generally develops in men in their late teens and early 20s, women tend to develop the illness, marked by abnormal impressions of reality, later in life.

Most new mothers suffer from postpartum blues as hormones shift after a pregnancy and they’re fatigued handling a new baby. But as many as one-fifth suffer from the more serious postpartum depression, which includes symptoms like despair and failing to eat or sleep.

Postpartum psychosis is far rarer, affecting only about one woman in 1,000. Women with postpartum psychosis have delusions, frequently involving religious symbols and a desire to harm their newborn, said Richard Pesikoff, a psychiatry professor at the Baylor College of Medicine.

He testified in the second trial of Andrea Yates, the high-profile case of a Houston-area mother found not guilty by reason of insanity after drowning her five children. Similar to Sanchez’s claim that the devil told her to kill her son, Yates told authorities Satan was inside of her and she was trying to save her children.

“The most common part of postpartum psychosis is the delusional thinking,” said Pesikoff. “Often but not always, it encompasses some type of religious thought. God is telling you to do something. The devil is telling you to do something.”

Women with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are at particularly high risk for developing postpartum psychosis.

For women with schizophrenia who are not taking medication, the risk of developing psychosis is 50 percent or higher, said Lucy Puryear, another psychiatrist who was involved in the Yates case.

If a mother is diagnosed with psychosis, she should immediately be hospitalized and separated from the child, Puryear said.

Some psychiatrists will tell women with schizophrenia not to have children because of the high risks, but she said with medication and treatment, “it’s possible to have a child and have a good outcome.”

While Sanchez could face trial, other similar cases — including that of Yates and Dena Schlosser, a Plano woman who said she sliced off her baby’s arms because she wanted to give the baby to God — have ended with juries finding the women not guilty by reason of insanity.
By Amy Philo, August 5, 2009 @ 3:56 pm

Excerpts:

Relative: Texas woman accused of dismembering infant son has been ‘in and out’ of psych ward

Paul J. Weber July 27th, 2009

Aunt: Mom accused in baby death had psych problems

SAN ANTONIO — An aunt of San Antonio woman accused of dismembering her 3½-week-old son with swords and eating his body parts says her niece has been “in and out of a psychiatric ward.”

Decapitated baby’s mother had psychosis diagnosis, “medication” in purse day before killing son

Otty Sanchez’s aunt, Gloria Sanchez, told The Associated Press that her niece had been “in and out” of a psychiatric ward, and that the hospital called several months ago to check up on her.

=====
By PAUL J. WEBER (AP) – 6 hours ago

SAN ANTONIO —

That setback darkened her mood, and she was soon diagnosed with postpartum depression.

She moved out of the couple’s shared home July 20. On Saturday, she showed up to see Buchholtz at his parents’ house. She became agitated when he told her he needed a copy of the baby’s birth certificate and Social Security card, Buchholtz told the paper.

Sanchez ran out of the home with her son in a car seat, threw the car seat into the front passenger seat of her car and sped away without buckling him in, the paper said. She left behind a diaper bag, her purse and her medication.