May 11, 2009 7:21 pm US/Eastern
HealthWatch: New Mothers And Postpartum Depression
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
It's more than just the baby blues.
"What she said to me was, 'Mommy, I am so sorry that I made you sad when I was born,'" author Sylvia Lasalandra said. "I felt as if I was punched in the gut."
Lasalandra was suffering with postpartum depression after giving birth to her daughter.
Stories of struggles with the illness from Lasalandra and the former First Lady of New Jersey have become the voice of a silent illness that strikes more than 800,000 new mothers each year.
"I told him I couldn't take the depression – the scary thoughts of hurting my son, and the racing thoughts that went over and over in my mind," Mary Jo Codey, wife of former NJ Governor Richard Codey, says.
Cody said those words to her husband back in 1984 after the birth of their first child.
She says that, at the time, her thoughts were terrifying.
"I was giving the baby a bath, and I saw the glass on the sink that I used to brush my teeth," Codey says. "I thought I could cut him with this, cut him and drown him. I had these thoughts 14 times a day."
Codey had to spend time in a psychiatric unit.
Now, though, she has helped get legislation passed in New Jersey that encourages screening of new moms, and gives them information about postpartum depression.
She's working with Senator Robert Menendez, who has introduced a bill to make it a national requirement.
"How many more mothers, babies, or both do we have to lose before we pass the Mother's Act?" Codey said.
Doctors say that postpartum depression is real and can affect mothers from any segment of society, and that's why they say research is crucial to determine risk factors.
"There's a pseudo-menopausal state that the mother goes through once the baby is delivered," Dr. Fred Rezvani, of the Valley Hospital, said. "She's on a hormonal high, hormones 10 to 100 times more than in a non-pregnant state."
Then there's a hormonal crash, Dr. Rezvani says – a crash that Lasalandra remembers well.
"Malina is now eight, and the lifeline to my heart," Lasalandra says. "There's not a day that goes by that I didn't think of how close I came to the unthinkable."
Lasalandra says it was her family's support that stopped her from doing the unthinkable, support she says all women will have if the bill passes in the senate.
Senator Menendez says the bill is being stalled in the senate, but he's hopeful that it will clear the senate floor in the summer.
In the meantime, doctors say that if a new mother's depression lasts for more than two weeks after the birth of the child, she should go to a doctor immediately.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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