Puerperal psychosis is a psychological disorder that occurs during le post-partum. Emily Whalley, 32, is a British mum who suffered from it for many years. Mother of Arthur, 6, and Henry, 3, she testifies in the Daily Mail to lift the veil on this little-known and taboo subject.
A traumatic first birth
Emily first became pregnant at age 24. If the young woman is overjoyed and prepares for her delivery with hypnobirthing method, her plans are contradicted when she exceeds the term of her pregnancy by two weeks. Tests reveal that there is meconium in the amniotic fluid, which can create difficulty in breathing for the fetus, that it has low oxygen levels and that it is in distress. Her delivery is therefore triggered. “I didn’t really feel in control of the situation”she recalls.
She gives birth to Arthur via an emergency caesarean section. “I was a first-time mum and I was very vulnerable. It was very traumatic. We came out of the maternity ward after five days and during that time I had slept for about 4 hours. I was anxious and traumatized and desperately trying to breastfeed but couldn’t”she says.
Between lack of sleep, trauma and stress, Emily’s mental health deteriorates. About three days after returning home, she begins to hallucinate: “I kept thinking he was dead if I left him or if I closed my eyes, so I didn’t fall asleep.”. Although an explanation is found for the fact that her son has difficulty breastfeeding or bottle feeding, she becomes increasingly anxious. He is diagnosed postpartum depression and anti-depressants are prescribed, but she is not referred to a psychologist. “I just went on and lived my life. I found some difficult times in parenting and was an anxious mother. I convinced myself that if I put my baby down, he was going to die. Or that if I closed my eyes, he would die. When my body finally fell asleep and I woke up, I was convinced it was dead and no one could tell me anything to convince me otherwise.”she explains.
A postpartum psychosis that lasts for years
Andrew, Emily’s partner, like the rest of her family, was very worried. However, no one measured the seriousness of the disorder which affected the young mother, and which only worsened when Arthur, in the grip of asthma attacks, had several hospital stays. While her psychological problems persist, she is so afraid that she decides not to have any more children.
However, when Arthur is 3 years old and she starts to get better, she and Andrew decide to have a second child. Following what she has experienced, Emily decides to consult a psychologist specializing in perinatality beforehand, and that is where the diagnosis of postpartum psychosis is made. Once pregnant, the young mother prepares herself with specialists to avoid relapsing at the time of the birth of her second child.
Unfortunately, again, not everything goes as planned. HAS 31 weeks pregnant, Emily’s water breaks. During the following week, she experiences the beginnings of labor which stop spontaneously. “The pain got so bad the doctors thought I was having intestinal spasms and they put me on a magnesium sulphate drip”, she explains. The goal was to reduce the risk of the baby being born with cerebral palsy, but the treatment is complicated for the young mother: “It made me sweat and I couldn’t move.” At the same time, the contractions prevent her from sleeping, which increased the risk of her suffering from puerperal psychosis again.
One day, she moaned in pain so loudly that a gynecologist who was passing in the hallway came to her room to see if everything was going well. An examination shows that her cervix is 10 cm dilated and the baby is breech. It is finally still by emergency caesarean section that she gives birth to her second child, Henry. This one was born eight weeks early and is therefore taken to the neonatal intensive care unit. Achieved refluxskin problems, difficulty breathing and the same problems as big brother that prevent him from suckling, the infant is in bad shape and his mother is even more anxious than before.
Due to her son’s respiratory problems, Emily finds the same fear that he will stop breathing if she leaves him alone. The moment of teaching him to fall asleep alone is particularly complicated. “Henry would stop breathing when he got angry so I couldn’t leave him crying, but I didn’t know what my options were”, she says. She researches and discovers methods that can help her, and that work, something that has greatly improved her mental health, she says.
The mental health of mothers is not sufficiently taken into account
After the birth of her boys, Emily is diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). But that didn’t stop her from making real progress with her mental health, and she even decided to become a sleep consultant to help parents whose children have trouble sleeping, because that’s what makes her sleep. saved: “It completely changed my life. Understanding how I could have helped Henry at the time, I turned that knowledge around to help other people.”
Today, she feels strong and equipped enough to deal with her sons’ ongoing health issues. She says she’s on the road to recovery, and her work as a sleep consultant made her realize how the mental health of new moms isn’t taken seriously enough: “All of this made me realize how much mothers and babies are forgotten.”
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