Free Screening of Not Carol and Panel Discussion – Scotch Plains, NJ on May 29, 2019

If you live in New Jersey, please consider attending this screening of Not Carol, a feature-length documentary about the Carol Coronado case from 2014.  I’d blogged about it here and here.  And in searching for her current status just now (I was hoping there’d be news that would be more positive than that she was spending the rest of her life in prison without parole), I found this article featuring Joy Burkhard of 2020Mom  and her advocacy for Carol and other moms.  Carol’s case is another example of a tragic loss resulting from a postpartum mood disorder, in this case postpartum psychosis.

What:  Free Screening of Not Carol

Why:  Learn about postpartum depression (PPD), its symptoms and how to support mothers (and even fathers) suffering from it.  Public awareness initiatives like this one can help reduce stigma and ensure mothers suffering from a postpartum mood disorder, like PPD or postpartum psychosis, get the help they need.  We must ensure future cases like Carol’s will never happen again.  Note: this screening is not just intended for doctors/psychiatrists/social workers that work with new moms.  You can be a survivor, advocate, or simply a concerned citizen who may or may not know someone in your life that has suffered/is currently suffering from a postpartum mood disorder.

When: Wednesday, May 29 at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Scotch Plains JCC, 1391 Martine Avenue, Scotch Plains, NJ 07076

RSVP: Courtney Teicher via cteicher@jccng.org or 908-889-8800 x227

After the film there will be a panel discussion comprised of the following individuals (note that Dr Birndorf and Dr. Levine were on The Today Show on August 3, 2018, which focused on Dr. Levine’s experience as a new father with PPD.  Click here for my blog post about that):

• Film Executive Producers: Eamon Harrington and Veronica Brady
• David Levine, MD:  Summit Medical Group physician
• Catherine Birndorf, MD – Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Obstetrics/Gynecology and founding director of the Payne Whitney Women’s Program at The New York Presbyterian Hospital – Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan.  She is also a co-founder of The Motherhood Center).  I’d met her previously at a Postpartum Support International (PSI) conference.

Speaking of PSI, there will be information and individuals on-hand to provide information about the non-profit international organization.

 

 

A Must for All New Jersey Medical/Mental Maternal Healthcare Practitioners, Doulas, Midwives, etc.

After a two-month dry spell in posting on my blog due to lots going on at home and at work, here I am briefly to help spread the word for the Postpartum Support International 2-day training on November 15-16, 2018 in Fort Lee, New Jersey:  Perinatal Mood Disorders: Components of Care. 

Led by PSI’s very own Birdie Gunyon Meyer, RN, MA (whom I’ve known since I became a member in 2006), Lisa Tremayne, RN, CPPD, CBC, and Joanna Cole, PHD, it is a critical training intended not just for mental health care practitioners but anyone and everyone who would ever need to care for an expectant or new mother.  That includes obstetricians/gynecologists, general practitioners, pediatricians, doulas, midwives, nurses, ER doctors and their staff, etc.

You can visit the site that goes over the training objectives, location, and cost via the above link, but the training will cover the basics in identifying/treating perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs)–which include antepartum depression, postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, postpartum panic disorder, postpartum OCD, postpartum PTSD, and postpartum psychosis–as well as understanding risk factors, treatment options, breastfeeding, consequences of untreated conditions, impact on loved ones, importance of social support, cultural differences, spirituality, etc.

Please attend and/or help spread the word about this training.  It is so, so critical that we ensure as many people as possible are trained so that fewer mothers suffer unnecessarily (like I did) and even worse, fall through the cracks and become another tragic outcome of a perinatal mood disorder.

 

Go See Tully, and Let’s Talk

Just a quick post tonight with a movie review of “Tully” written by a friend of mine, Mrs. W.

Initially, Mrs. W was annoyed like I was about the movie’s apparent failures based on a couple of negative movie reviews she and I both read this past weekend.  Like me, she did not want to see the movie.  That is, until I sent her the review from a postpartum psychosis survivor, Melissa Bangs, who happens to be the star of her own one-woman show “Playing Monopoly with God” that’s been on tour for the past couple of years and is headed to New York City next week!  Reading this positive review of someone who is a PPP survivor peaked Mrs. W’s interest, and so she went to see “Tully” yesterday.  Please take a moment to read Melissa’s personal thoughts from the perspective of an actual PPP survivor!

Without further ado, here’s Mrs. W’s movie review:

“Ok. So I saw it tonight………….

1. There are a couple triggering scenes.  One of them was in the first half of the movie, which almost caused me to leave because my whole body got amped up like I was going to have an anxiety attack.  But I calmed myself down and was able to sit through the last half of the movie, which was less emotionally jarring.
2. I don’t want to spoil the movie, but I will say that the main character definitely has postpartum psychosis but no one ever says it outright.  There are a few things said (like when her husband told the doc she was depressed with their second child) that might mislead people to think she has postpartum depression (PPD), but I think the movie left out the actual diagnosis on purpose because it wants the audience to figure it out on their own.  However, I do think the movie shines a light on postpartum mental health and how a struggling mother could slip through the cracks …to the point that even a husband who doesn’t pay close attention would fail to notice his wife’s condition.
3. It is a shame that the doctor in the movie doesn’t say it outright that she has PPP.  It was definitely a missed opportunity to shed light on the subject no one talks about.
4. Also, Charlize Theron played the heck out of that role.”

Hmmmm, it’s interesting that Mrs. W thinks the film makers deliberately left out the diagnosis of PPP to cause the audience to want to figure it out on their own.  I, on the other hand, don’t have such an optimistic perspective and in this case would not give the film makers such credit for the reasons stated in my blog post about Tully.  What the movie and the subsequent posts on social media has done, at least in the maternal mental health circle, is promote discussion about maternal mental health.  But that’s within the already existing circles of advocates, mental healthcare practitioners, and survivors.  I haven’t really heard much about discussions going on among the general public, which is why first and foremost we must capture the proper message about maternal mental health conditions (and bust stigmas associated with them) to educate people, share widely and DISCUSS!  THIS is why I am still annoyed about the lost opportunity to educate the public.  The film makers could have easily inserted a diagnosis into the screenplay.  But they didn’t.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is to weigh different perspectives and not let a couple of negative movie reviews completely shut off all interest in seeing a movie.  Just as Mrs. W had done, she started out with an opinion that was formed based on a couple of negative reviews of people (not really clear if they themselves were PPD or PPP survivors) who did see the movie.  Because of these negative reviews, she was annoyed and had zero interest in seeing the movie.  After I showed her Melissa’s review, she went to see it and was able to form her own opinion after seeing it.  Then she shared with me her thoughts about the movie.

Mrs. W did confirm that the movie:

1. Puts a light on maternal mental health in terms of mothers’ struggles being real and women like Tully falling through the cracks due to lack of awareness and lack of support from significant others and loved ones.  Motherhood is not easy.  A mother who is struggling will fall through the cracks if she doesn’t get the help she needs.  New mothers need practical/emotional help during the first couple of months.  Forget about the whole supermom thing.
2. Falls short in raising awareness that postpartum mood disorders are experienced by 1 out of 7 mothers and definitely not anything to be ashamed of.  They are very real, serious, painful to experience, and life-changing.

And yes, Charlize Theron plays the heck out of ANY role she plays.  But for me, even if Charlize earns an Oscar nom, I still can’t set aside my annoyance (that I blogged about previously) to see it.  As a person of principle, I would not want to pay even $1 to watch a movie that fails an opportunity to educate the population properly by sending unclear signals on the condition Tully really suffered from.  To each his/her own, as they say…..

 

Recent PPD Successes and Failures in the Media

I went from blogging once in two months to 8 times so far this month!  With Maternal Mental Health Month a little less than a week away, a lot of fundraising, training and public awareness events are being prepped to happen throughout May.  Another reason to love this time of year….hello spring!

Okay, so the title of my post is “Recent PPD Successes and Failures in the Media.”  There were 2 things in the media that caught my attention on my Facebook feed today that motivated me to blog once again. One is a success and one is a failure.  If you’ve been following my blog for some time, you would know that one of my favorite things to blog about are successful and failed attempts at depicting new mothers suffering from a mood disorder in the media, like my recent post about “Black-ish.”

Let’s start with the SUCCESS……
On this morning’s Megyn Kelly TODAY a postpartum mood and anxiety disorder (PMAD) survivor, Ashley Abeles, shared her experience.  The segment also included brief appearances by Dr. Catherine Birndorf and Paige Bellembaum who are the Medical Director and Program Director, respectively, of The Motherhood Center of New York. The Motherhood Center provides support services for new/expectant moms and treatment for PMADs. I met these ladies from the Motherhood Center at previous Postpartum Support International conferences.  If you missed the show, you can watch it here.  We need more moms sharing their PMAD experiences on shows like this!  Experiences kind of like my own that, as her husband explains, isn’t “headline-grabbing” material involving the tragic death of the mother and/or baby.  Because guess what, the vast majority of PMADs experienced by new mothers are NOT headline-grabbing material.  They’re mothers suffering from anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, weight loss and/or intrusive/obsessive thoughts who need medication and/or therapy to recover.  Yes, severe postpartum depression (PPD) can cause a mother to feel so depressed that she just wants to disappear or her baby would be better off without her since she can’t feel joyous like a new mother should, but postpartum psychosis is too-often confused with and lumped under PPD (as a catch-all term) by both the general public and doctors alike.  Yes, doctors!  Also, PPD is not the same as the baby blues and even today, doctors still mix up the two!  We’ve come a long way since I had PPD when it comes to information in the news, in publications, on the Internet and in social media.  But we still have a LONG way to go.

And here’s the FAILURE……
The movie “Tully” starring Charlize Theron.  A Motherly post by Diana Spalding titled “We’ve seen Tully– and we’ve got some real concerns” it seems yet another movie director/producer has failed to do their homework about PPD before coming up with the screenplay and releasing it.  What every movie director/producer or TV show director/producer needs to do before even contemplating a movie or TV show about PPD is consult with Postpartum Support International.  This organization is the leading authority on maternal mental health matters and should ALWAYS be consulted to ensure the right information is incorporated into the movie/show plot.  “Tully” attributes the bizarre experiences of Tully (i.e., hallucinations she has of Marlo, frantic baking and cleaning late into the night, impulsive behavior that leads to her car crash, suicidal ideation) to PPD.  However, her behavior is actually attributable to postpartum psychosis, hence this movie spreads misinformation about what PPD really is.  Her talk of suicide is brushed off by her husband, which I can see happening in the real world when loved ones fail to “get it” and ignore the mother’s serious need for help.  While this is a movie and movies don’t necessarily have to educate–after all, this is not a documentary–it should at least get terms right (postpartum psychosis, NOT PPD!)  and it should try to mention at some point that yes, the new mother who’s obviously not well and diagnosed, albeit incorrectly, with PPD needs help!  Maybe put some kind of disclaimer at the beginning or end of the movie like you sometimes see at the beginning or end of a TV show.  Something along the lines of:

“Approximately one out of seven new mothers suffers from a postpartum mood disorder.  If you are a new mother that is experiencing any of the following symptoms: insomnia, crying/sadness for more than 2 weeks, lack of appetite, sudden weight loss, rage, hopelessness, lack of interest in the baby, loss of interest in things you used to enjoy, thoughts of harming the baby or yourself, please know that you are not alone, what you are experiencing is not your fault, and you will recover if you get the right treatment.  Contact Postpartum Support International at 800-944-4773 or visit http://www.postpartum.net

Two Important PPD Studies

Since my last blog post, I thankfully haven’t been insane with work as I’d been in earlier weeks.  Truthfully, I’ve just been lazy.  It’s like my body is finally letting me be relaxed and not doing much, for once in who knows how long that I’ve honestly lost track.  I am still in the process of transitioning off of the laptop I’ve had for over 8 years, and with this blog post will be closer to my goal, since it will leave me with only 5 more tabs left open to blog about.  My last blog post included 4 stories of moms who died from severe cases of postpartum depression (PPD).  This blog post is about 2 PPD studies.

BREXANALONE / SAGE-547

This past June, I was beyond excited in reading an announcement from the UNC Health Care and UNC School of Medicine Newsroom titled “UNC researchers lead clinical trial evaluating potential treatment for postpartum depression” about a new treatment for PPD called brexanolone (or SAGE-547) currently in clinical trial phase 3.  The results of the clinical trials have been extremely promising thus far, with SAGE-547 providing a fairly rapid onset of relief for the participants, but it still needs to undergo further tests before the FDA would approve it for use by new moms….and how AMAZING would that be!  It would make a huge difference in the lives of so many mothers and their families–with 1 in 7 new moms experiencing PPD–not to mention save lives!

Brexanalone is also known as allopregnanolone, which is a steroid in the brain (neurosteroid) derived from progesterone that helps to regulate mood.  There is an increase before and a sudden decrease after childbirth when it comes to both allopregnanolone and progesterone, and it’s the sudden drop that seems to trigger PPD for some women. There are currently no medications specifically intended to treat PPD. Antidepressants like Paxil, which are supposed to increase levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, can take several weeks to “kick in” (it took 4 weeks for me), if at all.  For some moms suffering from PPD, multiple antidepressants fail to do anything.  And if you’ve ever been through depression you know how a day spent depressed can feel like an eternity, so can you imagine what weeks, or even months, spent desperate for a relief from symptoms, while caring for a new baby, must be like?

On July 14th, I heard Samantha Meltzer-Brody, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Perinatal Psychiatry Program at the UNC School of Medicine, talk in person about the treatment and the study at the annual Postpartum Support International conference in Philadelphia.

You can participate in testing via the Hummingbird Study. The website includes information on how to find out if you can participate.  On the website, there is also a helpful guide on how to to identify the warning signs of PPD of and provide support to a new mom with PPD.

PPD ACT

In order to better understand why some women suffer from PPD or postpartum psychosis and some do not, what causes PPD, as well as how to detect, treat and even prevent PPD and postpartum psychosis, information from as many women as possible needs to be collected for analysis.  To help collect data from as many participants as possible, an app was created. Thank goodness for technology!

Last year, Dr. Samantha Meltzer-Brody–yes, her again–was part of a team (that included the National Institute of Mental Health, UNC Chapel Hill and Apple) to create the PPD ACT iOS app, which I’d previously blogged about. It is an app that is is free and available to download via iPhone (and now Android phone!) in English and in Spanish in Australia, Canada, and the United States, and is coming soon to the UK and to Denmark.  Any mom who suspects she has experienced symptoms of PPD or postpartum psychosis is encouraged to download the app and join the study.  Even if you think/know you had PPD, you can participate in order to help advance the study to benefit moms in the future.  It only takes 10 minutes of your time.  I just did it myself, and it took less than 10 minutes, including the time to download the app to my iPhone.  Part 1 of the app is a short survey to get feedback on whether you have/had PPD and receive mental health resources if you are currently experiencing PPD. Part 2 involves participation by those who have/had PPD in a DNA study using a spit kit.

Click here for access to articles in the New York Times, Buzzfeed, CNN, Huffington Post, and the Lancet on PPD ACT.

You have to break through the uncomfortable…Why? Because mothers are dying from postpartum mood disorders

You have to break through the uncomfortable…..We are losing a silent battle that no one wants to talk about.

Amen!  These are the words Brian Gaydos utters when people ask what happened to his beloved wife, Shelane, and his answer “She died from a disease called postpartum depression” makes them uncomfortable.  Discomfort from stigma is what keeps suffering mothers quiet and getting the treatment they need and deserve.

When I read the August 4, 2017 article by Michael Alison Chandler in the Washington Post titled “Maternal depression is getting more attention – but still not enough” and I saw Brian’s words at the end of  the article, I decided I needed to blog about these words and about the tragic death of his wife.  Shelane Gaydos, a 35-year-old mother with 3 daughters, lost a baby in utero at 12 weeks and within 3 weeks died by suicide.  Family members did not realize until a while after her death that she had suffered from postpartum psychosis.  The article mentions, and as statistics have always indicated, women are more likely to attempt suicide during the first year after childbirth than during any other time in their lives.  It is important to note that a woman doesn’t need to give birth to experience any one of the various postpartum mood disorders, including postpartum depression (PPD), postpartum OCD and postpartum psychosis.  She can suffer from these disorders after having a miscarriage as well.

The article mentions certain things I’ve mentioned all along in my blog and in my book:

• 1 in 7 new mothers experience a perinatal (during pregnancy and after birth) mood disorder, and yet these disorders continue to be under-diagnosed and under-treated
• A relatively small percentage seek professional help either because they don’t know what they are experiencing deserves and needs  professional help and/or they don’t know where to go to get help and/or they are ashamed to seek help
• More obstetricians and pediatricians lack than possess the training needed to diagnose and treat perinatal mood disorders
• Certain risk factors are the reason why certain mothers develop PPD and others don’t: genetic predisposition to biological factors (some mothers are affected by hormonal fluctuations during/after childbirth and after weaning more than others) versus environmental factors (poverty, poor/abusive relationships, premature birth or miscarriage, inadequate support, inadequate paid leave from work)
• It’s thanks to advocates with platforms with a broad reach to members of the government and media that there has been progress in recent years.  Brooke Shields is one of the first of the advocates to start the trend of sharing their own experiences, spreading awareness, and trying to effect change.
• There are still stubborn societal myths (thank you to the patriarchal and quite misogynistic forces and views still in place here in the 21st century) that only serve to put unnecessary, additional stress on women, encouraging the false notion that all mothers can not only care for their babies without any sleep or support, but also be able to breastfeed without any issues and return to their pre-baby bodies and weight quickly.  Unbeknownst to many of us stateside, societies around the world (and in olden days here in the good ol’ USA) have customs in place that provide new mothers with the support they need to recover from childbirth and care for their newborn baby.  Instead, because we are a strictly capitalistic society, more and more mothers now work and have anywhere between 0-13 weeks of paid leave and are expected to recover and jump right back to their jobs before having babies, as if they’d never given birth in the first place!  If only men who think “Women have been giving birth for centuries should just up and go back to the way they were” can experience childbirth firsthand sometime!

Certain states, like Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Illinois have passed laws that mandate screening for PPD, and thanks to recommendations by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), healthcare providers are screening for PPD more routinely.  What I would like to know is whether these screenings are even happening (I am dubious):

• In 2015, ACOG recommended that OB/GYNs screen women for PPD at least once during pregnancy and once after childbirth.
• In 2010, the AAP recommended that pediatricians screen mothers for PPD at well-baby visits during the first 6 months.

Says Adrienne Griffen, founder and executive director of Postpartum Support Virginia, whom I have the honor of knowing through my affiliation with Postpartum Support International:

Postpartum depression is where breast cancer was 30 years ago.

I truly and sincerely hope and pray that it’s NOT going to be ANOTHER 30 years for us to see a significant change in the way we view PPD as a society and reduce the numbers of women suffering–and even dying–from perinatal mood disorders!

 

 

Wrapping up Maternal Mental Health Awareness Month: Interview with Lindsay Lipton Gerszt on the Documentary “When the Bough Breaks”

Introduction:

When the Bough Breaks follows the journey to recovery for Lindsay Lipton Gerszt.  It also includes interviews of celebrity mothers (i.e., co-producer Tanya Newbould, Carnie Wilson of Wilson Phillips, celebrity chef Aarti Sequeira, Peggy Tanous of The Real Housewives of Orange County), interviews with other mothers, subject matter expects on postpartum mood disorders (like Diana Lynn Barnes, whom I know), and those who helped Lindsay during her recovery (including her doula, her therapist, her acupuncturist, her OB/GYN).

The film is educational in that it touches on the statistics of postpartum mood disorders and what they are, importance of social support, risk factors, importance of screening new mothers, treatment methods, and the stigma/shame surrounding such disorders…..fundamentally, the same elements that are covered in my book.

The film encourages mothers to speak up and share their experiences, and seek help as soon as they feel something isn’t right.  There should be no shame in being sick with a postpartum mood disorder.  It is not your fault.  It is your body’s physical reaction to your childbirth experience.  The more mothers share their experiences, the less stigma there will be.

I smiled when I saw my lovely friends, Jane Honikman, founder of Postpartum Support International and Postpartum Education for Parents (PEP) and Walker Karraa.  Tears flowed when I listened to the tragic stories, one of which I had blogged about previously (Naomi Knoles). One of my favorite lines from the film referred to PPD as a “sickness of the brain, which is an organ of the body.”  If the public and healthcare folks all treated PPD this way, we would be leaps and bounds ahead of where we are today.  My hope is that one day, the diagnosing and treating of PPD will be as routine as diabetes.  The film ends very much like how my book ends.  There is hope, as there is progress thanks to efforts of many of the folks mentioned in the film.

I know what it’s like to be impassioned to share your experience so that other mothers don’t feel as alone, hopeless and caught off guard as you do.  My 429-page book has no doubt scared a lot of people away from buying and reading it, and I haven’t done a whole lot to market it.  But at least I have my blog, which reaches people via Internet all over the world.  For many people, images and movies have a greater impact.  You just sit back and take it all in.  Now that it’s available on Netflix, the film is available among all the other movies that could potentially be seen by the 94 million subscribers, which is a really huge deal.  And with Brooke, Carnie, Aarti and Peggy’s names attached, the film will surely draw in many, and hopefully, many more people will now have an awareness of postpartum mood disorders and as a result, more mothers with PPD will recognize when it’s not the blues and seek help sooner.  And hopefully, the film will help decrease the stigma associated with maternal mental health conditions like PPD, postpartum psychosis, postpartum OCD, etc.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lindsay, I’m sure you have heard repeatedly about how wonderful this film is.  It is ground breaking.  It is educational.  It is chock full of information that is so important to share with the public.  Thank you for taking the time to participate in this Q&A on my blog!

Question 1:

When did the idea of filming your experience with PPD first come up? Was there a light bulb moment for you?  What was the pivotal moment that turned your desire to write your story into reality?  For me, there was a specific what I refer to as “light bulb moment.”  Tom Cruise’s words “There’s no such thing as a chemical imbalance” in 2005 was my light bulb moment to write a book about my PPD experience. Incidentally, seeing him included in When the Bough Breaks flashed me back to how I felt when he uttered those infamous words. It was my experience with PPD, combined with childcare complications and lack of social and practical support, that motivated me to write my book One Mom’s Journey to Motherhood.  My mission was to help other mothers realize they were not alone in what they were experiencing and not the only ones seeking practical tips in dealing with childcare complications (e.g., colic, eczema, cradle cap, which I had no idea how to address as a first-time parent), so new moms wouldn’t be as anxious and in the dark as I was on how to cope with these types of issues.

Answer 1:

Director and Producer, Jamielyn Lippman, and Producer, Tanya Newbould, had the idea to make a documentary about PPD.  They put an ad in a mommy blog and I responded, as I felt ready to share my story.  At the time, my son was only a few years old and I was still suffering greatly.  After my interview, Jamielyn reached out to meet with me.  We decided to continue the journey of making When the Bough Breaks with the three of us, and I came on as a producer.

We knew that, in order for this film to really resonate with the audience, we needed to follow someone on her journey.  We needed someone that people could root for and connect with.  When we first started talking about who we wanted this person to be we didn’t have to think further than myself.  I craved to feel better and I realized that I was so far from recovery.  It was also the perfect opportunity for me to seek out different treatment options and to further educate myself on perinatal mood disorders.

What I did not know at the time was how big of an impact making this film would have on me.  The emotions I felt while filming were real, raw and intense.  I had anticipated to “hurt” while sharing my journey but what I experienced through filming was life changing.

 

Question 2:

Can you give a brief overview of what the film is about ?

Answer 2:

When the Bough Breaks is a feature-length documentary about PPD and postpartum psychosis.  Narrated and executive produced by Brooke Shields, this shocking film uncovers this very public health issue that affects one in five new mothers after childbirth.  The film follows Lindsay Gerszt, a mother who has been suffering from PPD, for six years. Lindsay agrees to let the cameras document her and give us an in-depth look at her path to recovery. We meet women who have committed infanticide and families who have lost loved ones to suicide.  Babies are dying, women aren’t speaking out, and the signs are being missed.  When the Bough Breaks takes us on a journey to find answers and break the silence.

 

Question 3:

Is there anything in particular you’ve learned as a consequence of capturing your story and these other people’s stories on film?

Answer 3:

I have never learned more about myself, human nature, pain and love as I have with making When the Bough Breaks. I have always suffered from depression but to suffer while having to take care of a baby made me realize how strong I am and what I am capable of.  I also learned that you cannot judge anyone!  Everyone has a story to tell and we must learn from each story no matter how painful it is to listen.  As hard as it was to make this film, it was life changing and I would not take it back for anything in the world.

 

Question 4:

Who should watch the film, and why?

Answer 4:

When the Bough Breaks is not just a film for mental health professionals.  It is a film for everyone.  Since up to 1 in 5 new mothers will suffer from a perinatal mood disorder, everyone will know someone at some point who is suffering.  We need to know what signs to look out for and how to give the support that those whom are suffering so desperately need.  We need to know what treatment options there are and how those treatments work.  Most importantly, we need to keep talking about this very serious illness and fight the stigma that is attached to it.  With When the Bough Breaks being available in 64 countries, now we have a big opportunity to work with other advocates to keep this important conversation going and reach a huge audience that otherwise does not know anything about PPD.

 

Question 5:

What was the most challenging part in the process of filming this documentary?

Answer 5:

For me, filming the interviews that dealt with postpartum psychosis were the most challenging part of filming When the Bough Breaks.  As producers, you are there to tell a story.  However, when you meet and get to know the many people being interviewed in the film, you start to care for them on the deepest of levels because we are sharing this experience and journey together.  To see their pain in telling their stories–whether it was a mom who suffered from postpartum psychosis, her partner or the children who were affected by it–was very intense and heartbreaking for me.  I personally became very close to Naomi Knoles and her family.  When we lost her, we were devastated but it also made us work even harder to make sure the film reached as many people as possible so her story could be heard and help others.

 

Question 6:

Do you plan to screen this movie in major cities, and if so, is there a schedule?  Is there a plan to get OB/GYNs to watch this movie?

Answer 6:

We have just signed two educational deals that will help get the film out in markets to which we would not normally be able to reach out on our own.  We have also set up a screening license on our website so that organizations and communities can screen and share the film. We need the film to reach as many hospitals, OB/GYNs, pediatricians and any other organizations that work with new mothers, and I am and will continue to work hard to make sure that happens. The screening license can be found here https://www.whentheboughbreaksfilm.com .