“It really, really affected my behavior at the end of college and after, where I tended to avoid all social interactions,” Raquel said. “I basically was home and then at work, and then home again. The things that I would gear up to do would be going to Target or going to Starbucks. I really, really, really limited my world.”
Post-graduation, Raquel was able to find a job that she loved and eventually got married, but it was another major life marker that finally forced her to deal with her mental health struggles: the birth of her daughter in April 2020.
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The things that pregnant bodies can do is nothing short of a miracle. We grow human beings inside of us and give birth to them as tiny little people who grow up to be adults who do great things. I mean, seriously. That s amazing.
Yet there are still terms that are used frequently today that inspire a lack of confidence in a pregnant and birthing body that suggest there is something inherently wrong; that as we age we lose our value; or that we are doing a bad job bringing life into the world.
As a therapist who specializes in treating perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs), I can t tell you how many women that I have treated that say to me, I can remember the exact moment when I was introduced to perinatal anxiety or depression. It was when a doctor or nurse said
Image zoom Credit: Illustration: Caitlin-Marie Miner Ong
This past April, only a few weeks postpartum, my son s pediatrician handed me a print out of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). The screening tool, developed in Scotland in 1987, is 10 questions long and used around the world to detect a variety of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) such as postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety.
The form s prompts range from I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things to The thought of harming myself has occurred to me. Each answer is assigned a numerical value. The higher the score, the more likely the respondent is suffering from a PMAD.
Image zoom Credit: Getty Images
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, medical care pivoted. One big change: Many major medical organizations including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) encouraged the use of telehealth, a practice that hasn’t exactly been commonplace for the care of soon-to-be and new moms.
Today? Hospital systems, doulas, lactation consultants, physical therapists, and pretty much
every other perinatal health professional you can think of has brought their services online.
And while some women in some parts of the country are returning to in-person care, virtual appointments have become somewhat of a mainstay.