The expert resource for women, families and healthcare providers offering the information you need to combat the effects of pregnancy related mood disorders
Shaken Baby or Why We Need the Mothers Act
By Polly Endicott
No woman should be left alone at home with a newborn for hours on end, day after day with no help. It is a recipe for disaster.
My neighbors recently had their first child. They did it the right way. The new mother's parents, both of them, arrived and stayed for almost two weeks helping to take care of the new family, doing yard work, grocery shopping, walking the dogs, cooking meals. After they left the next set of parents came and did the same.
Not all new parents have this kind of support. Some have none. Legislation called S.324 Melanie Blocker Stokes Mothers Act would ensure that mothers who need support would get it. Not like what family could provide, but at least someone checking in on mother and child, making sure she's coping, that she's not stressed out, that she knows how to deal with a screaming, crying, colicky baby.
The Mothers Act would also ensure that pregnant women and their partners learn about the symptoms of postpartum depression and what to do if those symptoms occur, and not to feel frightened or ashamed, but rather to feel confident in asking for help.
Some groups insist that the Mothers Act is big pharma out to dope women up if they are diagnosed with postpartum depression. Not so. The legislation is about awareness. There's no mandatory screening for depression, no screening of any kind. Just education and resources for help when needed.
If I had been aware of postpartum depression and had not felt ashamed of how I was feeling, my life and my children's lives would be different. As it was I didn't know about it and certainly felt ashamed as no one talked about it.
What follows here is an illustration of what the Mothers Act could prevent -- the kind of tragedy that occurs every day in America. " The next time I yelled at Sean was the Monday after Thanksgiving. We had been at a friend’s house for the feast. It had been wonderful to get all dressed up with no cooking to do. Sean cooperated by sleeping through most of dinner and I felt happy and rested. But on Friday Bob was back at work (his agency never closed the Friday after Thanksgiving), and then on Saturday he was back at the library studying. He’d come home for an hour at lunchtime, then go back and stay until closing at five o’clock. So, Sean and I still faced long hours alone together. It was the same on Sunday, the same every weekend.
By the time Monday rolled around I was alone with baby again, as frazzled as ever and anxious for Sean’s nap. But when I lay him in his crib he screamed. It was an awful intimidating shriek as if his mattress was a bed of nails. I picked him up and checked his diaper, checked for scratchy clothing, nursed him, cooed in his ear. When I laid him down again he howled for five minutes. You have no idea how long five minutes, a full five minutes of howling and screaming can feel until you've experienced it yourself. His little jaw shivered and his screaming only escalated so I picked him up again.
We walked from room to room. A sharp ache jabbed my right shoulder blade; my nipples were chapped and tender from him nursing constantly it seemed. I was sure my milk didn’t have time to replenish and Sean couldn’t be getting much. He’d never taken a pacifier and resisted when I tried to force his fist to his mouth. He’d been going six hours now. I stood in the kitchen bouncing him on my shoulder. The counter was covered with junk mail and bills. A greasy layer of dust and flour coated the blender, the coffee maker, the sugar and flour canisters. Should I call Bob? But why bother? He couldn’t do anything. I started weeping.
We kept a little chaise lounge-like baby chair propped on the dining room table. I strapped Sean in it, went upstairs and closed the bathroom door while he screamed. Sharp yelps caught in the back of his throat that sounded like he was gagging. I ran downstairs, scooped him up and held him a little too tightly, thinking maybe if I squeezed him a little he’d shut up. I leaned into the doorjamb and rubbed up and down to ease the tennis-ball-sized knot growing between my shoulder blade and spine. The dingy, shit-brown carpet was covered with cat hair and crumbs. Sean whimpered. I sat at the dining room table and took out my breast again. He sucked furiously then pulled his head away in frustration. The scraping of his tight jaw chaffed against my chapped nipple. I winced. He let out a yelp then dove to latch on again.
“Oh, no you don’t,” I snapped, hooking the flap of my nursing bra and pulling down my shirt.
Sean opened wide and made horrible nasally shrieks that ended with the jaw shiver. I hefted him over my shoulder and tromped upstairs to the nursery. With one hand I gathered baby blankets and created a soft pile in a corner of the crib. I lay Sean on top of them and then I screamed with all the rage I could muster, shaking him against the blankets.
“Go to sleep you fucking shitty stupid little baby!”
Sean stopped howling instantly. His bleary brownish bluish eyes looked up at me in astonishment. I felt dizzy, as if someone had taken a dark shroud like a huge black laundry bag and placed it over my head. I scooped him up.
“Sean, Sean,” I rasped, “I’m so sorry.”
We crossed the hall into the brightly lit bathroom where I held him close to my cheek smothering him with kisses and stroking his knobby head. We looked at each other in the mirror.
“You have got to go to sleep, Sean. Look how tired you are, baby. Look how tired we both are.”
Sean stared at our images in the mirror, wobbling and jerking quietly. I removed the blankets from his crib and lay him gently in it. I couldn’t sing and could barely even hum. Saliva tickled my raw throat. I gave him a kiss, then went to my bedroom, shut the door and sobbed. I was despicable. I had ruined my baby.
Later that week at playgroup as we were sitting around my family room I brought up a book I was reading called From Oneness to Separateness by Louise Kaplan.
“She says that every mother feels murderous towards her baby at some time, you know, like when she’s tired and frustrated? Has anyone ever felt that?” I was playing with Sean in my lap and tried extra hard to look loving and devoted, but each woman looked at me in alarm.
“No, that sounds crazy to me, my god,” said Andrea, the wife of a neurosurgeon. The other mothers held their daughters and sons closely. I resented their perfectly applied makeup, their tidiness, their matched diaper bags and new baby outfits. “Oh, me too,” I said, nodding seriously. “Really weird. I just wondered if you’d heard of such a thing,” And then I smiled brightly and gave Sean a huge kiss."