Antenatal depression is as common as postpartum depression. Most women with it go untreated.

After being confronted with the news that her boyfriend was married, had another family and was leaving her, Bei Bei Shuai tried to kill herself. She was shocked and despondent, and ingested rat poison in an attempted suicide.

Her attempt failed. The 35-year-old Chinese immigrant from Indianapolis is alive and well. So why do you need to know about her? Because Shuai was eight months pregnant with her boyfriend’s baby at the time of her suicide attempt, and the baby later died. She has been held in jail on charges of attempted murder until Tuesday, when she was freed on bail.

Suicide and suicide attempts during pregnancy are more common than people realize. In fact, one study published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology reports that suicide is the fifth leading cause of death among pregnant women. One key reason for all the suffering that leads to these attempts is the fact that many women who’ve been treated successfully with medication for their depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder are must go off of it after becoming pregnant. Either they quit because they believe they must, friends and family insist they quit, or their obstetricians make them quit.

Quitting, though, is a serious problem. Research shows that 50 to 75% of pregnant women with a history of depression who discontinue treatment upon becoming pregnant will relapse during their pregnancy. The prevailing wisdom is, of course, that mom should accept the possibility of relapse. Her baby’s health is more important than hers, right? She can stand to suffer for a few months in order to ostensibly protect her forthcoming child. But if she relapses and her depression returns, the truth is that her baby’s health is still in jeopardy, perhaps even greater jeopardy. Continue reading »

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New mom Lana Kuykendall leaving the hospital with her twins, just hours before being rushed to the hospital with flesh-eating bacteria.

Giving birth can be hell. I say this and I’m the kinda girl that gets an epidural the first five minutes after she arrives at the hospital. I can’t imagine how much harder it might be to carry around and deliver twins. The only thing I can think of that might be worse than that is getting FLESH-EATING BACTERIA!!

Brand new mother Lana Kuykendall, 36, has been living this nightmare scenario, and fighting for her life, ever since she delivered Ian and Abigail last Thursday. Days after coming home from their births, she started feeling a pain in her leg. News reports say that Kuykendall, a paramedic, realized something was terribly wrong when she noticed a black and red bruise spreading rapidly. Her husband rushed her to the hospital on Friday, and she has since had five surgeries to remove dying tissue caused by the infection. Continue reading »

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Are we mom enough?! Huh?

I love mothers. I love motherhood (and also apple pie, but not baseball). For whatever reason, my life is centered around mothering, whether as the mother of two children, an advocate for women with depression related to pregnancy and childbirth, or a writer here at Babble.

My mother was unwell after I was born. She became a severe alcoholic, I believe mainly to self-medicate for an undiagnosed postpartum depression. I have a deep and painful understanding of the significance mothers play in people’s lives, and of the unfillable hole that is sometimes left when something happens to prevent or sever the links between mother and child. I also am grateful to know, as mother to my two happy, silly children, what invaluable, magical stuff those bonds can be, no matter what parenting style was used to form them.

Given my life’s history, one of my central beliefs is that we should hold mothers up. Encourage them. Let them know that they are the exact right mother for their children, and connect them to whatever tools and support they need to do the best job they can. This is why, when I see us arguing about methods of parenting, my heart hurts. That sounds dorky, I realize, and completely cliche, but I really do get a tightness in the center of my chest.

Tomorrow, just two days before Mother’s Day, TIME magazine will publish a cover story entitled, “Are You Mom Enough?” Heart. Tightening. The timing of the story, the inflammatory headline on the cover and the art-directed photo meant to titillate that accompanies it, are all part of a very purposeful strategy to divide parents and sell issues.  What the story is about almost doesn’t even matter. What really matters is pitting people against each other and being sensationalist and poking at the walking bundles of raw nerves that are parents.  I felt an immediate urge to fight against it, so I reached out to parents in the Babble blogging community asking for their response to the piece.

Many said they didn’t want to respond. They don’t want to play the game, fan the flames, sell more copies of the sensational story. Don’t react at all.  I said I wanted to battle back against the media’s portrayals of the mommy wars, and one responded, “You are the media.” Touche. How do we talk about these things without spreading around the initial story that gets people arguing again? Are we ourselves guilty of doing the same thing sometimes? Should we even fight back at all?  After all, my own mother always taught me that when you are in a tug-of-war with someone, if you drop the rope they’ll be the ones who fall down.

I agree we probably shouldn’t get all huffed up and surly. Kill them with kindness and all that. Instead, can we just say HELL YES we are enough?! Can we stand together in support of each other and the fact that all sorts of parenting choices lead to the same end, which is love? Instead of reading those other words, words that were designed to raise up the hackles in all of us, we’d like you to read these. Here’s a love bomb from Babble for all of you moms out there on this Mother’s Day weekend. You are enough. We are sure of it. Continue reading »

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Funny, but most of the mom bloggers I know don't look like this.

In a complete surprise to me yesterday,  I showed up in an infographic about mom bloggers that appeared on the website Mashable. The graphic was widely-debated, both here on Babble and elsewhere, not least of which because it featured a white mom wearing an apron. Because, as Cecily Kellogg humorously pointed out, “… all mommy bloggers are white, blonde, and wear dresses and aprons.” Not.

I was also surprised to see several people point out, in reaction to the piece, that I’m not a mom blogger. What? I write about moms. I write about having children. I write about the illnesses pregnant and new moms may get when they have children. I’ve written about my own children, on my site, at ParentDish and here on Babble. I happen to think I am a mom blogger, and also a health blogger, a social good blogger, a women’s empowerment blogger, and a parenting blogger. I had the immediate reaction that I don’t want people defining what type of blogger I’m not any more than what type of blogger I am.

I know what everyone was trying to say. Don’t minimize us by labeling us all “mommybloggers.” It led me to thinking about how all mothers get pigeonholed.  You are either a stay-at-home mom OR a working mom. A breastfeeding mom OR a formula mom. A Republican mom OR a Democrat mom. An attachment mom OR a cry-it-out mom. If you blog about your kids, you’re a “mommyblogger.” It doesn’t matter if you also blog about space, or politics, or mental health, or technology. We get subtracted down into small pieces and parts and I’m not sure that makes it any easier to understand who we really are. Continue reading »

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Maurice Sendak illustrated the "Little Bear" series.

I’ve had this book for 37 years. It was given to me on June 14, 1975, as a gift from my parents for learning to read at the age of five.

Little Bear was the beginning of my lifelong relationship with Maurice Sendak, the beloved children’s book author and illustrator. Sendak died this morning, at the age of 83, from complications of a recent stroke.

Little Bear is far and away my favorite book. I can’t tell you why, exactly. I’m not a literary critic. In the traumatic world of my childhood, though, I read and re-read Birthday Soup and Little Bear Goes to the Moon. I was particularly drawn to the pictures, as young children are, whether it was Little Bear’s moon helmet or Little Bear sitting on a cloud or how closely he clung to his mother. His mother. She looked so safe and patient and loving to me. I never tired of those pictures. Continue reading »

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A photo Diana posted on Babble just last week.

We told you earlier this week about Diana Stone, a young mom whose water broke at 18weeks while pregnant with twins. Her story of the initial reaction in the hospital to her decision not to induce, and to try to keep the babies, touched the hearts of tens of thousands of our readers across the country. You responded in massive numbers with love and support.

Today, Diana has shared an update on her blog. We encourage you to go and read it, but wanted to give you some quick highlights since so many are asking how she’s doing.

First, and most importantly, Diana is doing as well as can be expected in a situation like this. She writes, “We have been assured at 23 weeks they will start to throw everything they’ve got at us to get the babies bigger, stronger, and able to survive from there on out. Right now the main concern for the staff is the risk of infection to me. I had a total rupture so I continue to leak fluid. But the first 24-72 hours are the highest risk and we’ve passed that now.” Continue reading »

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Has a potential mom friend ever given you the "Heisman"?

Why is it so hard to make adult friends?  That’s the question posed recently by Kara Baskin at Boston.com, in a hilarious take on how hard it is for moms to make other mom friends.

I often meet moms that I really like and with whom I think I could have a great friendship. I try to give enough hints, without seeming overeager, that I want to “take things to the next level” — meaning “be actual friends, not just people who say hello to each other in passing” — and either my hints are not hinty enough or I’m completely unlikeable. I’m not sure which.

If I could, I would copy and re-paste Baskin’s entire article because it cracked me up. Here, she describes what happens when you try to make a friend with someone who isn’t quite as eager: “An adult won’t shun you in the cafeteria. Instead, she’ll concoct repeated excuses to keep you at bay. ‘I wish we could get together, but I’m booked til July! Work is crazy!’ (Meanwhile, she doesn’t work.) ‘I would LOVE to meet up, but poor Madison/Hector/Fauntleroy has such an insane nap schedule because of his new vegan diet! Never know if we can meet ‘til day of! Can we let you know?’ (Inevitably, Madison/Hector/Fauntleroy will be in a coma the day of your rendezvous.)” Continue reading »

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