Non-medical approaches for antenatal and postnatal depression

I certainly didn't have a depressive phase in the pregnancy. There was just no indication that something like that would ever happen in the postnatal phase. I think the pregnancy was so comfortable and optimistic - we were really excited about having the baby.

Despite the fact that I've got a history of having depressive kind of phases, I almost felt like it would just be near impossible to have postnatal depression, given the pregnancy was such positive experience. It wasn't until we went to some antenatal classes and the midwife there was talking about postnatal depression that I thought, 'Oh, I'd better start thinking about this'.

Because my mum was diagnosed with schizophrenia - which was recently re-diagnosed as schizoaffective disorder. And my dad has chronic anxiety and my brother's got Asperger's and has had depression.

And so I don't have much of a hope of coming out of that kind of a family environment without having mental health-related issues. Which I have had over the years, and I thought I was quite an unhappy teenager - 'cause that coincided with mum's psychosis.

I think that was probably why I was focusing a lot on being fit and health in pregnancy ... [So] it wasn't until the sort of the final stretch where I thought, 'Oh actually there's a mental health risk here as well'. So I approached a local centre there that provides a lot of perinatal support to women. And - this is while I was pregnant - and I just said, "Look, I don't know if I'll develop postnatal depression - I just think I need to touch base just in case I do".

So I think that was good and it was good to know that they could be supportive if I went under. So I felt like throughout the pregnancy I did all the right things, in terms of physical and mental health. But I guess I didn't really think much about what it would actually be like to become a mother and how that experience would trigger childhood issues.

Maybe one of the quirky things I could disclose that I did, that I haven't heard of anyone else doing, was actually having my placenta encapsulated. It is a process by which your placenta is cleaned, dehydrated and turned into capsules. Now the benefits I read about were endless and I thought if only half of them were true, I was just willing to give them a go. And as a researcher I understood that there was no empirical evidence that would provide data on how truly beneficial this would be. And clearly western society would consider consuming your own placenta as something unacceptable and probably gross for many people. But there's plenty of literature that shows the benefits of doing so.

If you ever had to consider counselling or sessions with a psychologist due to postnatal depression; I said to my husband, "I'm going to give this a go". And maybe as a profile of a person in mid-thirties having gone through IVF, family overseas, postnatal depression scared me and I wanted to avoid it as much as I could. I don't have a history of depression and it's not in my family but every single mother told me about their baby blues that hit them at one stage, few first days or weeks and they scared me.

And I think that the process of having placenta turned into capsules and me trying the benefits they promised, such as avoiding postnatal depression and levelling your hormonal balance very quickly, restoring it in a way that they don't dip and you shouldn't experience those lows - I was very curious about it. I was willing to give it a go. I spoke to my obstetrician about it who called it 'hippy', and we laughed about it. But I think eating it raw would be hippy and it would be hardcore. Turning it into capsules is just like taking vitamins.

And I was very pleased with the effects. I am yet to write a letter of feedback to the company that did that for us. But I felt certainly that my physical recovery was fast and that I did not feel depressed at any stage. I did not feel those teary moments that other mothers recall as being overwhelming and feeling sad for no reason. I didn't have them. I believe they also - because placenta is so rich with iron, is that it also helps with to slow down bleeding. So really physical recovery was a big plus and people hear me saying that maybe three days after giving birth, I felt like I didn't give birth. I didn't know what discomfort I was meant to expect but I certainly felt like my body was going back to normal and it was fine.

And I didn't have physical complaints. So that's one of the little things I chose to pursue. And I did that for myself but I like to share it with people. Because they find that surprising, they almost find it hard to process in their mind.

Well I just kind of carried on and at about - I was also getting really bad headaches - and at about week I think eight, 17 or 18 and the nausea hadn't gone and the headaches hadn't gone and I just was feeling so awful. I remember sitting at home one day just crying and crying and crying and then the next day I went to a meeting and I had to drive and I just remember thinking, driving and thinking, 'I'm so disconnected. I'm driving and I'm fine but I feel this really weird sense of "This is me doing this stuff but I'm not actually me anymore and in my body"'.

And I had this meeting and I remember carrying on, and functioning perfectly - the guy, well I hope, the guy that I was meeting wouldn't have been able to tell - I felt this huge feeling of disconnection, I thought. 'Oh, oh, this isn't good'. So I came home and cried some more and then I rang PANDA, I don't know why I just, that just popped into my head and I knew that I wasn't in any danger but I just knew that it wasn't right and I was just feeling shit. So I rang them and they were just wonderful and just, it's such an incredible service, and they talked to me on the phone and for about an hour or so and then made an appointment for me. I think I went to my GP and got a mental health plan and, but I also went to the [hospital name], the [hospital name] because that's where we had our baby and was seen by a psychiatrist there. But by that time I was feeling much better and the nausea and the headaches kind of passed, and I started to feel a bit more okay.

I think that just through having identified that my experience of having conversations with my psychologist over the last four years, so I guess what I would also call that is having the space, that you book and you pay for yourself, but your own space to talk about your own issues where you don't have to feel self-indulgent, because it's not a conversation with a friend that has to be two-way and all that sort of stuff.

It's just about you telling your own story, it is important and therapeutic and I guess sometimes it's only when you hear yourself vocalise something or often with me see myself write something, which is also like vocalising it in your head, that you can maybe, you know, see where - contrast where you've come from and look back and go, 'Oh, okay, I can hear my - yeah, express a new thought is sort of born'.

That's not very well articulated. Do you know what I mean? Like when you hear yourself say something you can often judge, 'Oh, wow, actually, I've come a bit of a way on that', and I guess that in itself is a therapeutic sort of process and I guess for me, as I've sort of said, I feel like now I've come away, that I've been able to identify different issues and learnings along the way, so I actually feel like I kind of have something to offer.

I feel like I kind of have an experience, that I've sort of digested it and can now articulate, however funny that might be, to other people and therefore have something to share, whereas previously I would definitely feel like, 'Oh my god, my life is shit, I've got nothing to contribute to anybody'. Now I can be like, 'Yeah, that's - I've learnt some stuff and I'd be happy to have conversations with people about it', because I feel valid in what I've - what I've sort of discovered along the way.

They had initially suggested that I go and talk to someone, see a counsellor or a psychologist and again, I had resisted that because that would be admitting to someone else that there was a problem. And in my head I had always - I had never seen myself needing to go and speak to a psychologist or again, that admission of something not being right or - so that was brought up again by the GP and I agreed that that could be a good thing to do, so I started going to see a psychologist.

And I found that really difficult in the beginning, and the first person that I went to see, I went for five sessions and it didn't really work out. And I think that's, in retrospect perhaps, is an important thing to learn, that you need to find the person that's right for you and that person wasn't. They didn't have children of their own, they - at the end of these five sessions they were still asking me, "So what are your children's names again?" There wasn't that sense of continuity or that that they had taken on board anything that I'd said in the previous sessions.

So I found that quite difficult, but then went to see a second person who was not a psychologist, they were a counsellor and social worker, and she was brilliant. She had children so she, she fully understood where I was coming from, and just that ability to talk and have someone listen about what I was going through and to say, "You know, actually that is really hard", and, "No wonder you're so tired because you're doing that", and, "You had your children 16 months apart and that is really hard work". Just to feel I guess validated about how I felt, that there wasn't something necessarily wrong with me but that it was a difficult situation and being sick in pregnancy and then being in hospital and having the caesarean and all those things combined, you know, "No wonder you ended up where you are".

And it's very understandable and you can see how it happened, and that, that was a turning point for me, to have someone say, "I understand how this happened", and, "No wonder this happened", and, "You're not crazy", or, "There's nothing wrong with you, you're just", it was very helpful to talk it through.

The first psychologist I saw was young, didn't have children yet, and I don't know, I just didn't relate. I just thought, 'You know what? You haven't had children, I feel like if I really open up, I think I'm going to look like a crazy person or something'. And I just felt like I just wouldn't be able to open up to her. So I went back to the GP and said, "Oh not quite right". He said, "That's fine, that's fine, you've got to find somebody right". And I think he recommended someone else, and this lady was just fantastic. Look I don't even know if she's had children. But I certainly feel that she has.

She just asked some questions and just let me talk and asked me how I feel and just made me probably aware of - even though I was talking about my feelings, I was talking but I wasn't feeling them. So you know I think she was able to sort of throw them back and make me realise that, when I was talking, how to feel them. I probably - I don't know eight sessions. Maybe, I'm guessing about eight. And she said, you know, "How do you feel?" I said, "You know what, I'm okay". Like I probably wasn't 100 per cent okay, but I said, "I'm okay. I'm strong enough that I actually think I'm okay. I don't feel -" like I felt like I'd been to her enough. Like I felt like I'd done everything I could do, discuss with her. Like I didn't know if there was - I didn't feel like there was anywhere more we could go.

I thought they'd been fantastic. She was worth her weight in gold. She was brilliant. And so I was quite happy to sort of finish up there, and you know and she was always open. You know, "If you need to come back absolutely". But I never felt like I - no, never did.

I ended up going to that support group. Once I felt - and I rang, I rang the woman and I said, "Look you know", because she kept calling me and checking on me which was wonderful and she brought up the support group again. I said, "Look I'm actually feeling good. I don't think, I don't think I need the support group", and she said, "Well you know what, you can come and help others".

So I went to the support group and look, I did need it. I wasn't as good as what I was thinking, but just sitting there and there was about, from time to time there was about four or five other mothers with their babies and all at different ages. And even if it was just sitting down and having a coffee and a chat rather than actually something structured, but I found like one mother said, her GP just didn't believe she had postnatal depression. So straight away I said to her, "Well why don't you go and see my GP?".

Someone also was interested in the mother and baby unit. So I was able to give them information and everywhere I went people would comment on how settled my child was. So I knew that that was perfect for me. It would not be perfect for everybody. It is really confronting going there. You do have to let them cry. You also spend a lot of group time and those sorts of things which doesn't suit everybody. It didn't suit me. I hate talking in a group, I hate it, but you're not pushed. You're not forced to do anything.

My understanding of antidepressants is that there can be more side-effects than St John's Wort. It's not that St John's Wort doesn't have any; it's still an antidepressant and yeah, I just wanted to try something first that was less likely to have some of the more serious side- effects. And you know, I tend to think that antidepressants are probably really only indicated for people with fairly major or severe depression, and that for people with less serious depression, it's - if people can find the right help it's probably better to actually be learning skills including how to engage a broader support network or how to calm very strong emotions or how to deal with very negative thinking or how to access more childcare; a much more holistic approach.

But again you know, for some women who are severely depressed, antidepressants are probably necessary, but I wasn't severely depressed. I was struggling with mood for sure and feeling too tired and down too much of the time, but it was the whole sort of package that was required. But then again I, you know I think holistically that's just my style. For some people they might want an easier solution and it might appear to be easier to take a tablet.

Yeah, and sometimes it can be really helpful but I guess taking a tablet doesn't actually teach people new skills but it can level their mood out a little bit so that they can go and find somewhere to learn new skills.

Like they can even get it together enough to even get out the door to go to a class or go, or you know read a book and practice techniques you know and yeah, get out in nature more or whatever it is they need to do.

I think one of the things that came out of my first period of depression was just how important exercise was to me although I, one of the signs that I was becoming depressed would was that I was exercising frantically and I was really, I lost a whole lot of weight and my periods stopped and I got way too thin but I was, you know, swimming 1500 metres and running about six k's every day.

So it became clear that I was using the endorphins from that to cope, which was just too much, I was just doing way too much and not, and not eating, just drinking instead, it was just awful kind of cocktail.

But I did, when I toned that all down it became clear that exercise was something that I needed to schedule in and, although it's terribly hard when you're tired, that's the one thing that I will, you know if there's a - there's a creche at our pool and though it's not a particularly, you know state-of-the-art arrangement, they're safe, it's only 20 minutes I'm going to be in the pool, maximum half an hour, just to get that headspace.

Sometimes when my husband gets home, even if it's 7.30 at night I'll go for a run just, just to get out and sometimes I don't run, sometimes I walk, you know. But I have found that for me that's really important for levelling my mood and for cleansing stuff out, you know.