Depression survivor advocates for help for new moms

By Matthew K. Roy PEABODY, Mass. — Being a new mom was a fidgety hell for Lisa Waxman.



Her heart raced. She could not sit still. She could not eat or sleep.



"Worse yet," Waxman said, "I could not hold my new baby without crying."



The intense anxiety gripped her almost immediately after she delivered her son in January 2007. It only grew worse when she left the hospital and returned to her Peabody home.



"I certainly did not feel like his mother. I was sure he could do better than me," Waxman said. "I felt an overwhelming sense of regret that I had brought this baby into the world. I actually called my sister to suggest that she adopt him."



Three years later, Waxman is in a healthier place. She survived postpartum depression and now counsels others suffering similar experiences. She also is advocating for legislation that would make Massachusetts the first state to make health care providers regularly screen for postpartum depression.



The condition affects 10 percent to 15 percent of women. For Waxman, the "intensity of emotion" lasted three weeks.



"I was compulsive about cleanliness," she said while testifying in support of the bill in January.



On her first full day home from the hospital, she went out and bought 12 bottles. "I came home and sterilized them in boiling water for several hours and then, convinced that they were not sterile enough, I sterilized them again."



Waxman begged her obstetrician for a sleeping pill. She was told she needed to stay alert because her baby needed to feed every few hours. An on-call obstetrician one Saturday told her to drink some herbal tea.



"It will help you relax," the doctor said.



If only that were true.



Waxman didn't know where to turn. When she took her son to the pediatrician for two well-baby checks, she wanted to tell the doctor that she wasn't sleeping, that she was crying as much as the baby.



"I wanted her to hug me and tell me that I was going to be OK," Waxman testified.



She was afraid to say anything. It was the baby's doctor, not hers, after all.



"I recall thinking that she might think that I wasn't a suitable mother," Waxman said.



The breaking point was 20 days after she gave birth. Waxman went to the emergency room and was subsequently transferred to a psychiatric hospital.



"From the delivery room to the psych ward," she told lawmakers, "what a way to welcome a new baby."



Waxman was connected with a clinical nurse specialist in Wakefield who treated postpartum mood disorders. With medication, talk therapy and "really good social support," she recovered.



The bill should help future mothers avoid the prolonged struggle Waxman endured, she said. Filed by Rep. Ellen Story of Amherst, the bill would require obstetricians, midwives, pediatricians and other primary care providers to regularly screen mothers for depression during pregnancy and the first year of their babies' lives.



"It's not asking pediatricians or obstetricians to treat depression, just screen for it and make referrals (to specialists)," Waxman said in an interview. The screening could be as simple as a questionnaire mothers fill out in a waiting room.



Matthew K. Roy writes for The Salem (Mass.) News.