My stay on a psychiatric ward for PPD inspired a new career
After my husband and daughter disappeared behind the heavy steel doors of the psychiatry unit, I felt like I could breathe again. I knew I would be OK.
May 5, 2021 The author, Ariane Audet, with her newborn, about one week before she was admitted to an in-patient psychiatry unit.
Television and movies always portray pregnancy, birth, and the aftermath as mostly happy events. The discomforts are mild and intermittent: the mom throws up once on the bus, is rushed to the hospital in a cab a few episodes later, yells at her husband, then pushes her baby out with a scream. Afterward, she’s moderately sweaty, but already “so in love,” reclining in an immaculate hospital gown, makeup and hair done.