Say that a woman comes to me and she’s experiencing trouble. Say, that she’s suffering with a severe postpartum depression, and say that she’s been highly functioning before this depression, but now she’s overwhelmed. She has the new infant and another young child, and there have been medical complications that she’s had to deal with, and all of this happening in concert with a stew of shifting hormones—well, it’s difficult. Say that she’s already seeing a psychiatrist, a good, experienced psychiatrist, and she’s begun medication, which is helping some, but it’s not enough—she’s continuing to experience a kind of desperation that is, quite clearly, very very painful. Say that she kind of wishes her mother could come and take care but this isn’t feasible, her mother has her own medical problems. Nor is there a mother-in-law that can fly into town, or an aunt, or a sister.
We talk. What she longs for, it soon becomes apparent, what she needs for some period of time—and maybe not even a long time—is a refuge. A place rather like a cure cottage. And, ideally, a nurse or a midwife at this cure cottage who might take care. (Or perhaps a doula, a Greek term which I only recently learned means, “in service of the new mother.”) She needs a person and a place that might offer mothering. I’m picturing a few days or even weeks in this cottage as a way to jump-start healing. I’m picturing a soft bed in the cottage, a tray of breakfast next to the bed, an open window, curtains lifting gently, and outside, a fragrant wood of evergreens or tall hardwoods, and paths through the woods, and maybe one of the paths leads to a lake.
And, when she’s ready—when it’s time—the midwife will bring in the baby for her to hold. (Until then, the midwife will hold the baby—or perhaps the baby’s father will hold the baby—whoever it is that can step in for a while.)
Somehow, spending several days in the psychiatric wing at one of our local hospitals—well, it’s just not the same.
I wish there were a place that I could send her. I wish there were a place that honored well the connection between what is happening inside the body and what is happening outside it—the way that the environment influences the body—and visa versa—the body as one element (or one constellation of elements) in a larger ecosystem.
I wish that I could tell her to get on the train, and that when she arrived there would be someone there to meet her.
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Resources-----
I feel I would be remiss in writing about postpartum depression without including some resources for people who might be suffering with such—or who might know someone who is. I’ve attached 2 pages:
Resources for Postpartum Health—this intended not merely for those suffering with postpartum depression but for those new mothers who don't have full-blown depression but might be looking for resources for postpartum health and wellness.
