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Postpartum Depression: A Silent Epidemic – Winter 2010
Break the Silence: Join the discussion about postpartum depression online, hosted by PPD survivor Kristin Davis ’88, by using the comment section below.
Get PPD Information and Support: Visit the postpartum depression blogs written by Ivy Shih Leung ’86 (http://ivysppdblog.wordpress.com) and Kristin Davis ’88 (http://ppdsurvivor.blogspot.com).
Get the Facts About PPD
- Approximately one in eight new mothers experiences PPD.
- Approximately eight of ten new mothers experience the “baby blues.”
- Only about one-third of those suffering from PPD will be diagnosed and only 22 percent will be adequately treated.1
- PPD refers to a spectrum of disorders that includes:
- Postpartum panic disorder: Occurs in up to 11 percent of women following childbirth2
- Postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder: Occurs in approximately 3–5 percent of women following childbirth3
- Postpartum post-traumatic stress disorder: Occurs in approximately 1–6 percent of women following childbirth 4
- Postpartum psychosis: Occurs in approximately 1.1–4 of every 1,000 deliveries. There is a 10 percent infanticide/suicide rate associated with PPP, which is why immediate treatment is crucial.5
Sources:
1 Templeton, Hilda, PSI conference, 2006
2 Postpartum Support Int’l Factsheet
3 Postpartum Support Int’l Factsheet
4 Beck, C. 2004. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Due to Childbirth, the Aftermath. Nursing Research 53(4):216-224.
5 Gaynes et al., 2005
Recent PPD Headline-Making Developments
- 2001: Andrea Yates, stricken with postpartum psychosis, drowns her five children
- 2005: Brooke Shields’ book about her experience with PPD, Down Came the Rain, and Tom Cruise’s subsequent assertion that chemical imbalances don’t exist
- 2006: New Jersey became the first state to pass a law requiring licensed health care providers (MDs, nurses) to educate women and their families about PPD, screen new mothers for PPD, and establish a statewide perinatal mental health referral network, including the creation of a 24-hour hotline
- 2006-present: Senator Menendez (D-NJ) sponsored the controversial Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act. For the bill’s text and more information, visit www.perinatalpro.com.
Spread the Word About PPD
Too many women today still suffer unnecessarily in silence due to:
- Lack of public awareness/educational initiatives
- Misdiagnoses of doctors due to failure to distinguish PPD from the blues
- Lack of awareness of PPD symptoms
- Lack of PPD screening of new mothers before they leave the hospital
- Lack of awareness within medical community of the full scope/complexity of perinatal mood disorders (e.g., perinatal OCD, psychosis, PTSD, anxiety disorder, etc.)
- Societal misconceptions (e.g., insomnia, a classic symptom of PPD, is merely sleep deprivation and fatigue that all new moms experience, and having a panic attack is the same thing as anxiety that comes from difficulties in transitioning to motherhood and being a first-time mom)
- Societal stigma related to mental illness
- Motherhood myths (e.g., myth of the “super mom,” breastfeeding, bonding, etc.)
MHC’s Collection of Collections – Winter 2010
View many more of MHC’s hidden treasures, photographed by James Gehrt, here.
Favorite Finds
What’s In the College’s “Attic”
Here’s a tip-of-the-iceberg list of what’s awaiting rediscovery on the MHC campus.
• the best and most complete known specimen of the trilobite Skehanos quadrangularis, from the middle Cambrian Period of the Boston Basin.
• giant-shark teeth from the Neogene Period, representing whale-eating sharks that reached 50 feet in length
• Mary Lyon’s green velvet bag, scraps from her dresses, her hair, jewelry, and examples of her weaving [See image above.]
• a cheese dish used at the Mount Holyoke Seminary
• Virginia Apgar’s medical bag (Apgar’s method of evaluating newborns’ health is used worldwide.)
• President Gettell’s World War II ration book
• hand-written manuscripts for all of Wendy Wasserstein’s works
• a portrait of, and a clock belonging to, Deacon Porter (MHC’s first trustee in charge of building, for whom Porter Hall is named)
• plant specimens preserved by nineteenth-century MHC students for botany classes
• copper minerals from Bisbee, Arizona, especially stunningly colorful azurite
• the desk and chair used by Mary Woolley as MHC president
• a Shaker dress dating to the early 1800s; a monkey-fur muff
• an eight-inch-inch Clark refracting telescope, which features lenses that were
among the last personally ground by the great lens maker Alvan Clark, Sr.
• a replica campstool from King Tut’s tomb, reflecting the Egyptomania craze in early 20th century America.
• a plaster model of a mathematical object that, even though it’s curved, has straight lines on it
Share Your Discoveries
Please use the comment box below to share your favorite objects at MHC (or what you’ve discovered elsewhere).
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Campus Currents – Winter 2010
Ants to the Rescue!
We know that ants help each other. Digging out buried nest-mates by tugging at their limbs is a well-known instinctual behavior. But attempting the rescue of a fellow colony-mate from the clutches of a plastic snare by biting it seems a little more advanced.
And that’s exactly the behavior Karen Hollis, professor of psychology and education at MHC, found during her research last summer.
“Snare biting demonstrates that rescue behavior is far more sophisticated, exact, and complexly organized than the simple forms of helping behavior already known,” said Hollis in an interview with London’s Daily Mail. Continue reading ‘Campus Currents – Winter 2010’ »
How Do You Do It All? – Winter 2010
Share your tips for keeping your life’s “pockets” filled but not overflowing by using the comment section below.
Please add your name and class year.

