family tools
choose a tool resource directory
find a practitioner parenting toolbox product safety media reviews family fun guide send an e-card family astrology

community features choose a feature birth stories find a Mothering friend live chat mothers' writing group teen voices

	pregnancy & birth birth stories

Pregnancy after Psychosis
By Sarah R. Fields
May/June 2007 - Issue 142
Article: Losing It
Side Bar: Postpartum Mood Disorders Guide

During my months of recovery, when I began reading about perinatal mood disorders, I came across a case study of a woman who had survived postpartum psychosis. As I read entries from the diary kept by Jenny Hatch while she was in the hospital, I finally felt as if someone understood what I had experienced. Jenny's confidence and wisdom empowered me during my healing. Her story gave me the strength and the knowledge to believe I could still have a baby and remain well—I would have entered my third pregnancy with great hesi-tation and fear had I not first spoken with her. When I decided to tell my own story (Losing It), Jenny agreed to let me tell hers, too.^1-3

Jenny Hatch suffered postpartum psychosis when she was 21, following the birth of her first child. She spent a month in a psychotic and manic state before being hospitalized for several weeks. Since then, she has given birth to four more children, with no relapse. During each post-partum period, Jenny has effectively employed natural preventive methods to stave off mood disorders.

In the first months following her psychosis, Jenny saw 12 different doctors, all male. About four months after her hospitalization, she met a female psychiatrist, who treated her with natural progesterone. Jenny said the hormone treatment returned her to a state of equilibrium. "I felt it was the first major step in healing."

The closest Jenny has come to another psychotic episode was after the birth of her fourth child, who was taken to the NICU. Jenny missed three nights' sleep and "could feel the tidal wave. I was going to crash into psychosis." Her husband brought her a liquid calcium-magnesium supplement, which she took along with vitamin B complex to nourish her body. The natural minerals and vitamins were enough to allow her to achieve deep sleep. After the birth of each of her babies, Jenny has gone to extremes to protect her sleep. "When I have a new baby, I do nothing. I let my house go nuts so I can nap. I can feel when the mania is building. It has always been connected to sleep deprivation." From that experience, Jenny has come to believe that emergency rooms and mental hospitals should greet psychotic and manic patients with nutritional supplements rather than medications, which bring along with them a host of side effects. To regulate her health over the years, Jenny has employed the wisdom of three homeopaths, an osteopath, and an herbalist. "The mixing of healing modalities is what made my healing complete. Everybody made a contribution." She uses Sunrider Chinese herbs, Nature's Sunshine herbs, and Young Living essential oils.

Jenny views her bout with psychosis as a gift from God. She relates that, in the traditional practice of some Native American cultures, if someone had a break with reality, the village would surround that person to prevent injury, while allowing the psychosis to run its course. Then, that person would be apprenticed to the group's shaman. Surviving psychosis gave Jenny permission to do with her family as she knew best, including unassisted homebirth and attachment parenting. She feels that God was telling her, "You're an adult now," giving her courage to face family and friends who might doubt her choices. Jenny asserts, "I am very good at saying 'no,' and have not felt too much shame or guilt for spending money on myself and taking good care of my physical, emotional, and spiritual self."

Jenny creates a protective space in which she can nurture her body and her family in the postpartum period. She says, "I truly believe quiet living is the key to mental wellness."

NOTES
1. A book-length version of Jenny Hatch's story, A Mother's Journey: My Story of Healing after Postpartum Psychosis, can be downloaded at www.naturalfamilyco.com.
2. This sidebar is based on personal communications with Jenny Hatch via telephone (11 May 2006) and e-mail (17 May 2006).
3. Jenny Hatch's story is also discussed in Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, Depression in New Mothers: Causes, Consequences and Treatment Alternatives (New York: Haworth Press, 2005), 199?214.
—S. R. F.

Sarah Fields sings, writes, and mothers in Hobart, Indiana, where she lives with her husband, Carl, and their children, Anna (4) and John (2).