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Postpartum Depression · Health and Healing Dealing with Trauma and Addictions

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, once again it's your man Mike D.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Just wanted to thank you for loaning me your listening ear.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Have a subject that I want to touch on quickly and briefly, and it's talking about the postpartum depression.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Postpartum depression is a type of depression that happens after a baby, right?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: It affects up to one in seven women.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: You may have an emotional highs and lows in other symptoms.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: You may have trouble caring for your baby or yourself.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Treatment often involves medication and potentially some counseling.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Postpartum depression, we'll refer to as PPD, is a type of depression that typically happens after childbirth.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you feel extremely sad and loneliness, have severe mood swings or anxieties, or and lose interest in any things you normally enjoy, you may have postpartum depression.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can develop it within the first few weeks of your child's birth or gradually, even up to one year later.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it can also start during pregnancy.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Most commonly, it occurs around the sixth weeks of postpartum.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Postpartum depression doesn't just affect the mother.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is important to note.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: It can affect surrogates and adoptive parents too.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: People experience harmonial, physical, emotional, financial, and social changes after having the baby.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: These changes can make life feel difficult, and you may begin to doubt yourself.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you have postpartum depression, you know that you're not alone.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not your fault, and the help is available.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Far too many women never seek treatment and the fear of embarrassment, but your healthcare provider is always a safe space to share your symptoms and feelings.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: They can help you figure out if you need treatment and what treatment will work best for you.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Most new moms experience postpartum and this is considered a normal experience.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Baby blues affects up to three and four women after delivery.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you're experiencing the blues, you may cry for no apparent reason or feel anxious a few times a day.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: This typically begins within a few days of delivery, but the symptoms tend to subside within a couple of weeks on their own.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: If symptoms continue beyond your second week postpartum, contact someone.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is just one type of postpartum, baby blues.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: The second is postpartum depression.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's more intense and more severe.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: According to doctors, it can start within one week of delivery and last several months.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Symptoms of postpartum depression interfere with your day.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Your day tends to feel mostly bad instead of mostly good.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: You may experience alternate highs and lows, frequent cries, irritability, and fatigue.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: You may also feel that you can't care for your baby or for yourself.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Up to one in seven women will develop postpartum depression.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the third is postpartum psychosis.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's an extremely severe form of postpartum depression that requires emergency medical attention.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: The conditions are rare, affecting one in one thousand people after delivery.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: The symptoms generally come on quickly and intensely, lasting for many weeks and maybe even many months.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Symptoms include severe agitation, confusion, feelings of hopelessness, delusion, or hallucinations, rapid speech, and mania.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Mania is when your mood, energy, and activity levels become much higher than usual.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: You may feel overly excited, irritable, or full of energy.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: You might not feel like you need much sleep.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: You may take risks or act on impulses without thinking them through.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: These changes are different from how you usually feel and act and are noticeable to other people around you.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: There are several indicators that let you know you have postpartum depression.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: You may have postpartum depression if you have feelings sad, worthlessness, hopelessness, or guilty, worry excessively or feeling on edge, loss of interest in hobbies or things you usually enjoy.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Changes in appetite or not eating, loss of energy and motivation, trouble sleeping or wanting to sleep all the time, crying for no reason or excessively, difficulty thinking or focusing, lack of interest in your baby or feeling anxious around your baby.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: On a more serious note, if you have any of the following symptoms, please notify your healthcare provider right away.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thoughts of harming yourself or your baby, recurring thoughts of death or suicide, depressed mood for most of the day, nearly every day for the last two weeks, loss of interest or pleasure in most activities nearly every day for the last two weeks, feeling anxious, guilty, hopeless, scared, panicked or worthless nearly every day for the last two weeks.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Having symptoms of postpartum depression doesn't mean you're a terrible parent.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Having a baby brings on so many changes and challenges to your life.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to feel overwhelmed or like it's too much for you to handle at that time, but it's not your fault.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: What are the complications to look for?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: We spoke of maybe needing medication or counseling.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Untreated postpartum depression is dangerous and affects you, your baby, and those who love you.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the complications of postpartum depression are chronic and long-term depression.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: This can impact your overall quality of life and put a strain on relationships, family and friends.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Being unable to connect with your baby, not bonding with your child can affect their development and growth, increased risk of suicide or thoughts of hurting yourself.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: People who don't seek treatment for mental health conditions are more likely to consider suicide.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Please get help immediately if you have thoughts of harming yourself or your baby.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Which leads us to our focal story and the conversation and the controversy in two separate trials of mothers that kill their children, and postpartum depression and mental illness was discussed in both.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yet there were two different outcomes.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: However, I will not get into the intricacies of the trials, but I will want to highlight some things that it relates to the law in addition to race.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: It may be difficult for some to hear, but these distinctions are real and they are valid.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: I would like for you to keep an open mind as I go through these processes and make a judgment for yourself.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to put anybody on the spot or highlight anything that is negative, but what we do here is allow folks to hear, to recognize, and to make judgment calls based on the information that is provided.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: In addition to, we want you to heal and we want you to be made whole and well.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: That is the ultimate goal.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, most recently ended in a mistrial after the jury hopelessly deadlocked.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Clancy is accused of killing her three children while allegedly suffering from severe postpartum psychosis.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, Latasha Sanders, a black mother from Brockton, Massachusetts, received two mandatory life sentences without parole in December of 2022 for the 2018 murder of her two young sons.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Latasha has been granted a new trial, as was Lindsay.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so Judge William Sullivan, who presided over Lindsay Clancy's high profile murder trial, also was the presiding judge over Latasha Sanders' case.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: The two cases have some other striking similarities.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: The Sanders case, Sanders was arrested on February of twenty eighteen and charged with murder in the death of her sons.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: The children were discovered in their beds in a third floor apartment.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: The boys were stabbed about a hundred times in total between the two of them.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Prosecutors have said she was evil and angry.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sanders, however, contend that the judge impeded her ability to present fully a criminal responsibility defense by excluding relevant medical records.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Those records documenting post arrest diagnosis or treatment of mental illness.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: The Supreme Judicial Court said in its unanimous ruling released said that Sullivan had erred and that Sanders was denied a failed try because her entire psychiatric history was not shared with the jury who convicted her of first degree murder.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about first degree murder here.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yet information was withheld.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Lindsay Clancy murder trial has divided the US, as does many trials and cases of this magnitude.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: There are many things that have divided the US, and the divide keeps getting wider and wider.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: You must ask why each of you should question the reasons and the reasons why.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Murder trials are dividing the country.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Racism has divided the country.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now we have postpartum depression as it relates to children dividing the country.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Clancy spent nearly seven weeks in and out of the courtroom while dozens of women wearing pink rallied in support.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Her defense team argued she had been suffering from postpartum psychosis when she strangled her children and so could not be held criminally responsible.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Clancy claimed she experienced hallucinations and delusions before strangling her three children, then jumped from a second floor window, leaving her paralyzed.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: There were expert witnesses testimony, but some of them seemed to dispute the defense's claim that postpartum psychosis precluded Clancy from criminal liability.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Later testified that the American Psychiatric Association did not recognize postpartum psychosis as a diagnosis.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: The ruling was released as the Clancy case was in court.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Beyond having the same judge, they faced the same charges, first degree murder, brought by the same DA's office, but Sanders' mental health records weren't allowed in the trial, whereas Clancy's were.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: The question still rings in the ears of many Americans.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Why are there two justice systems?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Why are these identical trials tried and viewed differently by the same people?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Why was some evidence allowed in one case and not the other?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Why has one been convicted and the other not?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: And now we've been informed that there one juror who didn't agree with the other jurors who decided that she was guilty.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Hence the mistrial was a lone American African male, who decided he didn't see or recognize the fact that it was true that she suffered from postpartum psychosis.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yet the division there still applies.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Even when it was decided by the professionals, the American Psychiatric Association, who agreed with the American African Male, that they did not recognize postpartum psychosis as a diagnosis.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: The reality being a new parent can be overwhelming and difficult to bear.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Postpartum depression isn't something that magically goes away on its own.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is a real condition, and no, this postpartum depression isn't entirely preventable.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Most people recover with treatment.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Women with postpartum depression need a lot of support.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: The biological, physical, and social factors that cause postpartum depression are beyond your control.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Fair or unfair, right or wrong.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: You'll be the judge.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not the judge.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Judge Sullivan said, Sanders, you're guilty.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: You've been sentenced years in prison.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Clancy, it's a mistrial, which means you're not guilty, but we'll have to do it again.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Two justice systems.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: One judge, one courtroom, one DA, one charge of murder, two different outcomes.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Mental health, yes, it's a real thing in this country, guys.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: If we're going to litigate mental health issues, we have to be consistent.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: We have to judge rightfully.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's the judge making the decision or a jury of said so-called peers, gotta do us right.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Professionals are involved in a lot of these cases, yet it goes ignored on some and not on others.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Postpartum depression isn't their fault.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Counseling, medication, and joining a support group are good ways to help women to cope with their PPD.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: I hope and I pray that both of these women have the opportunity that their children, five of them do not have based on a mental health issue.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: With that being said, those babies did not deserve to die at the hands of their mothers.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: We must take a greater look at the overall picture, not just a mental health issue, but there are other issues involved as well.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: If at any time you feel overwhelmed or you need someone to talk to, call or text nine eight eight to reach the suicide and crisis lifeline in the US, someone is available to help you twenty four seven or simply dial nine in an emergency.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's also free resources available through Post Pardon Support International.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Call the PSI helpline at one-eight hundred-nine four four four four four four four four seven seven seven seven seven seven seven three.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: We can no longer continue to just lock people up and throw away the key while we let others walk free for the same crimes committed.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: If we continue to do that, we too, I don't care if you're on the judge's bench, the bench in a sporting event, or the bench in a park.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: We all have to give an account for all that we have done in this life, whether good or bad, you will stand before your maker and creator.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that will be the ultimate decision.