Post Partum E-Press

"R.E.A.P. Research, Education, Awareness and Prevention" (Copyrighted, 3/05 D.A. GRAY)

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I have been disappointed by doctors at least six major times in my life!
 
Two of those six times included the two episodes with"post-partum psychosis". 
 
Treatment for this medical emergency did not come close to giving me the hope and courage I needed, not like the medical protocol attached to having been diagnosed and treated for having breast cancer in the Fall of 2003. 
 
Let's hear it for the term "postpartum" being deleted for twenty years. If the term "cancer" had been deleted for that long, I might not be here writing this today.
 
For this reason alone, I still say that having had breast cancer and survived was not as difficult as having experienced PPD and Psychosis.  This just should not be! Medical treatment protocol "must" be made available in every aspect of a woman's health!
 
Research is what is so desperately needed to eventually bring all disciplines of medicine together - to work together on a common cause for providing better health care for all women of child-bearing age. 
 
If research had been increased and connected with The National Institutes of Health - decades ago, many lives could have been saved!  Now, families left behind to pick up the broken pieces  are the mothers of orphaned children; the daughters of fathers and mothers who are still filled with shame surrounding suicide and "maternal infanticide". 
 
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HOW CAN YOU HELP?
 
We have no time to waste - we must begin now, so future families will not endure the fate of families before them.
 

 

BECOME -  A Medical Consumer Activist

 

I share my personal past battles with PPD and especially Postpartum Psychosis - because no other woman should have to go through the despair, depression and two and three-quarter years of hanging on to life like I did --  living second to second, while life and motherhood went on without me. 

 

I did not ask to be in a psychotic, catatonic, or "zombie" state,  missing out on all aspects of motherhood, anymore than I asked to get diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003.  

 

Finding out what creates a postpartum psychotic state should be the mission of all of society!

 

Society cannot continue to turn a blind eye to research needed so desperately to connect the dots and prove the "supposed" hormonal link that predisposes women to PPD and Psychosis. 

 

Society embraced PMS a long time ago, why not PPD? Both have similar characteristics and hormonal links.

 

 

 

 

As medical consumer activists: We must demand from insurance companies increased coverages for all aspects of PRENATAL AND POSTPARUTM HEALTH CARE - not less coverage.

 

One way to accomplish this is to work to change the way society approaches what constitutes a "regular check-up".  Many times a depressed person, in and out of the postpartum area, may have low thyroid levels - an imbalance.  This is the easiest scenario to remedy - I've been taking thyroid replacement for at least 8 years now; it was not addressed when previous depressed states were present.  It took having a total break down to get it addressed!

 

To get started - to one day see in place a PREVENTION MODEL OF CARE - click the link for The American Cancer Society.

 

FIND OUT how you can raise your voice to see a change in the ACS's classifications when setting age requirements for cancer screening, especially of the thyroid.

 

LATEST STUDIES SHOW 1 in 1,000 women will develop thyroid nodules during pregnancy - and many will go on to have thyroid cancer.

 

Not all pregnant women are age 35 and older - the age now set by The ACS for thyroid cancer screening! )

 

Please act now - email The ACS today and demand a change in the age recommendation for thyroid cancer screening. 

 

Eventually, doctors will get the message and do full thyroid screenings - regardless of the presence of cancer, and do it as part of a regular medical check-up; where blood tests include thyroid testing automatically.  

 

Thyroid blood levels are not part of a guaranteed blood test today, but if more medical consumers demand it to be - it will happen. 

 

WELCOME ABOARD THE "NEW" WOMEN'S MOVEMENT -  ITS CALLED  P R E V E N T I O N!