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Abrupt Weaning Factor in PPD/Psychosis

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FROM "ABRUPT WEANING"  TO  "PSYCHOSIS"

 

 

 

 

OTHER THINGS THAT PLACED ME AT RISK FOR PSYCHOSIS

 

I found out, only too well, that abrupt weaning can take a mother from PPD to the hightened depressed state known as  "Psychosis".  

 

After the birth of my second child - my editor, I felt a sense of despair when knowing that an upcoming visit with family, flying from Germany where my husband was stationed to the United States, would also mean that I would again be kept from completing something I believed in - weaning my daughter to a cup. 

 

I was already showing signs of being in a depressed state before flying from Rhein-Main Germany to Syracuse, New York.  There was an unknown fear within me haunting me as well. I was somewhat reassured with my husband accompanying me and our son then five, and daughter seven months old.  Looking back, there was a definite emotional problem brewing within me.  

 

I knew that my father was against breastfeeding as he had blamed breastfeeding as the cause of my first break with reality after having our first child.  What started as a need to breastfeed based on the unavailability of the same formula at our commissary had grown into wanting to breastfeed our daughter to a cup. It was the one thing that I felt I knew how to do. 

 

Always wanting to please my father, I very hesitantly gave in and stopped breastfeeding after just several days of visiting. The anger I felt toward him yet again stopping me from doing something I wanted and believed in made my blood boil. I was thrown into not knowing what I was doing. Mom said it was okey to place her grand-daughter on whole milk, but I still worried. 

 

Things went from bad to worse in a hurry.  I was hospitalized shortly after returning to Germany with our children for having visions of seeing them stabbed. 

 

Why was I that "one out of one thousand" who will experience the mental state called psychosis? Why was I again that one woman out of three to four women that encounter psychosis with the second child?   For twenty-four years now, I have increasingly made it my mission in life to find out.

 

No woman is immune and as such, no woman should be left without hope for themselves or those they love while going through difficult postpartum times.  It will take all of society to demand better preventative care!   

 

Having experienced the worst of motherhood, I believe that all women have a God-given right to be the best mothers possible.  Remember, however, that perfection is not a requirement and is nearly impossible in the best of situations.  All each of us can do is our very best.

 

 

 

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