Perinatal Pro Weekly Blog

On Friday, October 23rd, Postpartum Support International will present one of the first workshops – EVER – on legal actions involving a mother who suffered from a perinatal mood disorder. This program is being held at H2Ocean Restaurant in Cedar Knolls, NJ, a magnificent establishment whose owner, Sylvia Lasalandra Frodella, has been a major advocate and author regarding this issue.

Headlining the group of presenters will be attorney George Parnham, who represented Andrea Yates and Margaret Spinelli MD, author of the book Infanticide

Maternal Mental Illness and the Criminal Justice System
Location: H2Ocean Restaurant Meeting Room
41 Ridgedale Avenue, Cedar Knolls New Jersey 07927

Thursday October 22, 7:00 pm Dinner at H2Ocean – All are invited!

Friday October 23, 2015, 8:00am Breakfast and Registration

Friday October 23, 2015, 8:30-5:00 Seminar

This educational seminar, presented by experts in the field of maternal mental illness and the law, is designed to increase the
competence and proficiency of professionals and advocates. The day-long seminar will provide practical, evidence-based, and
case-based information, with ample time for discussion. The seminar lead faculty is criminal defense attorney George Parnham,
JD, expert on the defense of individuals with mental illness and a passionate advocate for legal reform of their treatment in the
criminal justice system. Approved for 6.75 CMEs. Please contact Wendy Davis wdavis@postpartum.net for information about
CLEs and CMEs, and financial aid policy.

8:00- 8:45: Registration and Breakfast
8:45- 9:00: Maternal Mental Illness and the state of legal defense: George Parnham, JD
9:00-10:00: Insanity Definitions, the Legal System and Responses — George Parnham, JD
10:15-11:15: Understanding Perinatal Psychiatric Illness and the Law — Shoshana Bennett, PhD
11:15-11:45: Discussion, Q & A
11:45-12:15: LUNCH SERVED
12:15- 1:15: Expert Panel:
 Po Chau JD: Public Defender experience
 Susan Benjamin Feingold PsyD: Clemency after incarceration
 George Parnham JD & Margaret Spinelli MD: difficult legal cases
1:30-2:30: Psychosis and Medical-Legal Systems: Gaps and Failures – Margaret Spinelli, MD
2:30-3:30: Types of maternal illness cases in Criminal Justice — Diana Lynn Barnes, PsyD
3:45-4:45: Important factors in selecting and preparing an expert witness — Susan Dowd Stone, LCSW
4:45-5:00: Q&A and Discussion

For more information, contact Ann Smith at 917-207-0254 or asmith@postpartum.net

For futher information or to register, please click here!

In this column and others, I have written much about the efficacy of utilizing Dialectical Behavior Therapy to help women achieve emotional and behavioral stability both in the perinatal period, i.e. while they are pregnant and in the postpartum. New mothers often verbalize a high degree of motivation to address long standing negative behavioral/emotional patterns in order to parent their children more effectively. DBT offers a rigorous treatment protocol which focuses on regulating difficult emotions so that optimal behavioral choices may be made. DBT addresses problems across the bio/psycho/social realm to help women attain maximum emotional health.

While this workshop will not specifically focus on the postpartum period, the strategies offered can help clinicians break through challenging therapeutic impasses or plateaus which may compromise treatment progress.

The workshop is open to students and clinicians.

November 12, 2014
9:00am – 5:00pm
NYU Kimmel Center for University Life
60 Washington Square South
Susan Dowd Stone, MSW, LCSW, Clinical Social Worker, Therapist; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Silver School of Social Work, New York University

Taught using a variety of techniques including, slides, interactive lecture and discussion, presenter led demonstrations, and handouts, this training on Dialectical Behavior Therapy, initially development for borderline personality disorder, offers strategies which may be useful when therapy interfering behaviors threaten the integrity and progress of the critical therapist/client alliance and client progress.

This one day experiential workshop will cover some of DBT’s most effective skills and strategies for coping with treatment noncompliance, boundary violations, suicidality, and management of destructive urges.

Participants will:

Learn basic and advanced DBT theory;
Learn DBT skills from all four DBT modules;
Learn application of skills to clinical issues including: depression and anxiety; and

Schedule:

9:00 am – 9:10 am – Check In
9:10 am – 10:45 am – Emotion Dysregulation Across Diagnoses; Where DBT fits amidst the cognitive therapies; Clinical Presentations which may benefit from DBT; DBT support for the therapist.

10:45 am – 10:50 am – Break

10:50am – 12:40 pm

The Biosocial Theory, Dialectics, Stages of Treatment; Applying the model, interview, staging, contract; Diary card, homework,
Group and Individual format

12:40 pm – 1:10 pm – Lunch

1:10 pm – 2:45 pm

The Four DBT Modules

Mindfulness, Emotion Regulation, Interpersonal Effectiveness and Distress Tolerance; Coaching Calls, Chain Analysis, Validation

2:45 pm – 3:20 pm – Linehan Video and Discussion: Acting Opposite to Emotion

3:20 pm – 3:30 pm Break

3:30 pm – 4:00 pm Breakout Sessions: Instructor-Provided Case Studies

4:00 pm – 4:30 pm Case Presentations and Commentary

4:30 pm – 5:00 pm Q&A

To register, please click here.

Seven (7) CEUs will be awarded by NASW NY.

This event will include a light breakfast.

General Admission: $135.00
NYU Silver Alumni (Graduate and Undergraduate degrees): $101.25
NYU Silver Post-Masters Certificate Program Alumni: $114.75
NYU Silver Current Field Instructors: $101.25
NYU Silver Current Students (space-available basis): $40.00
Non-NYU Silver Current MSW and PhD Students (space-available basis): $60.00
3+ from one agency: $101.25
Veterans: $67.50

In the event that after registering, you determine that you can no longer attend this event, The Office of Global and Lifelong Learning offers refunds on the following basis:

Refund requests made on or before November 5 (by midnight): full refund
Refund requests made on or before November 10 (by midnight): 50% refund
Refund requests made on or after November 11: no refund
In the instance of event cancellation, all registrants will be fully reimbursed.

NYU Silver School of Social Work
Office of Global and Lifelong Learning
1 Washington Square North, G08
New York, NY 10003
Email: stephanie.kaplan@nyu.edu
Phone: 212-998-5897
Fax: 212-995-4497

Silver School of Social Work
Ehrenkranz Center
1 Washington Square North
New York, NY 10003

(212) 998-5900

Stories about infanticide are heartstopping and thankfully rare occurrences. But when we are confronted with infanticide, and in this case, allegedly serial infanticide which may have occurred across a decade, we must again consider how and when we decide that a pregnancy or postpartum mood disorder had any role in these infant deaths.

It is gratifying that one reporter from the Salt Lake City Tribune, Lindsay Whitehurst, made it her business to speak to those who could help guide the public’s impression away from a simple diagnosis of postpartum depression.

This tragic situation underscores a reason I was unable to support the “fix” in the DSM about extending the postpartum onset specifier to six months or even a year. This narrow extension to the period in which a woman may be vulnerable to a mental health issue entirely misses the point. Up to 20 percent of all women will experience a major affective mood disorder sometime throughout their life. We have no way of responsibly attributing the true etiology of postpartum illnesses to pregnancy and delivery if we have not been assessing that mother for mental health issues throughout her life. The diagnosis of ANY medical condition requires an understanding of all presenting symptoms, when they began and their duration. Onset is only one piece of the puzzle.

Women’s reproductive mental health begins at menses and ends at menopause. We understand that these can be periods of emotional vulnerability for many women. Biology does indeed play a role in the emergence of depressive episodes as it conspires with environmental factors to create the perfect storm in susceptible individuals.

Without a benchmark, or any understanding of a woman’s mental health prior to consideration of pregnancy and childbirth, we may be misassigning emergence of these disorders to a pregnancy when in fact the pregnancy is only an exacerbating factor and not a causative one. Assumptions not based in a more extensive overview of a woman’s mental health history could lead to undertreatment, causative misattribution and poor treatment outcomes. It can also lead to the inaccurate conclusion that any negative or harmful behavior demonstrated by a mother to her infant is due to a postpartum mood disorder.

Women’s mental health does not begin and end with pregnancy. Until we are consistently evaluating and assessing mental health issues as part of annual physicals across a woman’s reproductive life cycle, we cannot reliably attribute these illnesses to pregnancy and postpartum alone. We cannot use data which takes a snapshot of only one phase of a woman’s life to form important conclusions about etiology.

Nor do evaluations specifically developed to assess maternal mood disorders control for sociopathic or criminal behavior which might co-exist with a postpartum disorder. Having fought for decades to develop appropriate responses to women suffering from perinatal mood disorders, we must be careful that our lense does not become so narrowly focused on a time frame that we miss who the mother is and was before her pregnancy.

POSTPARTUM SUPPORT INTERNATIONAL URGES MOMS AROUND THE WORLD TO REACH OUT TO SAFETY NET

PSI joins with worldwide advocates for prevention through education, early diagnosis and treatment of maternal mental health distress

(October 4, 2013) – According to Postpartum Support International (PSI), at least 20% of pregnant and new mothers will experience a maternal mental health disorder, yet most are never screened, diagnosed or treated.

“Women, families, and health care providers need to know that pregnancy and postpartum mental health distress and disorders are common, real, and treatable. We can prevent escalation and crisis with access to qualified treatment and support,” said Wendy Davis, PhD, Executive Director of Postpartum Support International. “We want women and their families to know that they are not alone, they are not to blame, and with help, they will be well. Most importantly we don’t want women to be frightened and isolated; we will help them find reliable resources.”

Less than half a percent of new mothers will suffer from a psychosis, in which there is a severe break in reality. Up to 5% of mothers suffering from postpartum psychosis will commit suicide. “A woman with postpartum psychosis loses touch with reality,” said Diana Lynn Barnes, PsyD, LMFT a forensic expert in maternal mental health and member of PSI’s President’s Advisory Council. “She may also have false beliefs that she and/or her baby are in harm’s way,” she said. PSI works alongside other advocates to train professionals and social supporters, increasing the number of qualified resources around the world.

Postpartum Support International is the world’s largest non-profit organization dedicated to educating professionals and connecting with families suffering from pregnancy and postpartum distress and mental health disorders. The organization offers support, reliable information, professional training and volunteer coordinators in all 50 U.S. states, Canada, Mexico, and more than 35 other countries. For resources and support visit www.postpartum.net or call 800-944-4PPD (4773).

The 2020 Mom Project

In one of the most concise historic summaries of America’s challenges in maternal mental health, the 2020 Mom Project has introduced a video highlighting the road journeyed thus far and continuing obstacles to helping mom’s and providers access the services they need to recover from pregnancy related mental health challenges. Click here or on the link above to watch the video!

Read below for further information on this welcome initiative!

LOS ANGELES, May 15, 2013 – The California Maternal Mental Health Collaborative (http://www.camaternalmentalhealth.org/), a non-profit organization committed to increasing and improving maternal mental health awareness, diagnosis and treatment, today announced that Cigna (NYSE:CI) is the first health service company to adopt the 2020 Mom Project’s (www.2020MomProject.com), Health Insurer recommendations. Cigna covers 12.6 million people throughout the U.S. In addition, both the Henry May Newhall and NorthShore University HealthSystem agreed to be the first hospitals to adopt its Hospital recommendations. The announcement was made on the heels of the official launch of the 2020 Mom Project in conjunction with National Women’s Health Week, May 12 through 18, 2013 (http://womenshealth.gov/nwhw/) (see today’s announcement, “The National 2020 Mom Project Campaign Launches. . .”).

“For many new moms and moms-to-be, depression and other mood disorders make it difficult to feel the joy of motherhood,” said Doug Nemecek, M.D., chief medical officer for Cigna’s behavioral health unit. “At Cigna, we understand that a mother’s emotional health is just as important as her physical health, which is why we’re proud to support the 2020 Moms Project as an adopter of its Health Insurer Recommendations. Increased depression screening for pregnant women and new moms, and better access to appropriate mental health care for moms with mood and anxiety disorders, are essential to creating happy, healthy families.”

“Henry Mayo is pleased to be one of the first adopters of the 2020 Mom Project Hospital recommendations. We know the value of helping moms during this precious time and are thrilled that we have a chance to showcase this commitment publicly,” said Sally T. McGann, director of maternal child services.

“NorthShore University HealthSystem has long been committed to supporting and improving maternal mental health and is proud to adopt the 2020 Mom Project recommendations for hospitals,” said Richard Silver, M.D., Chair, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at NorthShore and Associate Dean, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. “NorthShore firmly believes that the well-being of a family is dependent on all facets of a mother’s health and is dedicated to fostering positive outcomes for families by improving maternal mental health.”

Any insurer or hospital can adopt the recommendations by reviewing the guidelines and signing an on-line agreement including the date they will complete implementation. This information is then available for anyone to search online. The recommendations will be updated each year and adopters can choose to adopt the latest, more stringent recommendations, or an earlier version.

“It is our hope that by involving stakeholders, such as hospitals and health insurers, that we will realize significant change in the systems used to inform and treat pregnant women and new mothers so fewer will have to suffer from maternal mental health disorders,” said Joy Burkhard, project director of the 2020 Mom Project.

About the 2020 Mom Project and the California Maternal Mental Health Collaborative

The 2020 Mom Project is a national campaign of the California Maternal Mental Health Collaborative (“The Collaborative”). The Collaborative is a non-profit organization and was formed in September 2011. The California Maternal Mental Health Collaborative is in part the result of the passage of California Assembly Concurrent Resolution 105, which declared May as Perinatal Depression Awareness month in California. ACR 105 also urged private and public stakeholders to form a volunteer task force to address opportunities for increasing awareness of and screening for maternal mental health disorders. The collaborative includes over 30 members representing for-profit, non-profit and government organizations, including representatives from the regional collaboratives/task forces in the state of California. Its members include a wide representation of the community: medical and mental health professionals, educators, community advocates and individuals who have experienced these disorders.

Me and my daughter Julia

As a board member of Postpartum Progress Inc, I wrote about our first annual fundraiser, “Climb Out of the Darkness” last week. At that time and in this economy, $25,000 seemed to be a lofty goal… even with lots of participation and many $10 donations… all of which are so welcome.

Well, I am completely exhilarated to tell you we are over our initial goal of $25,000 and have set a new goal of $35,000. We still have 7 days left and many of you are just starting to create your own fundraising pages! It’s a blast to go on the site each day and see all the beaming new faces, moms with their babies, moms with their families, and amazing Warrior Moms PERIOD who want to be a part of this unique event!

It is not too late to join us! My climb will be held in Berne, NY in the Helderberg Mountains (right behind my home) on Saturday, June 22 at 1 PM. If you are interested in joining this hike, please contact me for details at susanstonelcsw@aol.com.

Or you might want to set up your OWN climb or fundraising page – you can do that by clicking here.

Donations of any amount are welcome and can be made to any of the listed participants’ hikes. But even if money is scarce, come on out and hike with us anyway. If you’re a Warrior Mom, or someone who supports one, you’re automatically included.

There are presently over 40 different climbs and hikes (of varying difficulty thank heavens!) listed in many states and several countries so you can find one near you!!

And if you’d like to create a fundraising page representing your own non-profit, agency, hospital, program or practice, just post your logo as the picture and let everyone know you support the work of Katherine Stone and Postpartum Progress.

Looking forward to participating with you during the world’s first multinational, simultaneous event to raise awareness of PMAD’s and support a resource near and dear to us all!

Happy Hiking!!!

Susan

Join us in supporting the world's most widely read blog on postpartum depression!

From Deborah Rimmler – board member of PPI about a special fundraiser taking place right now to support Postpartum Progress – the world’s most widely read and respected blog on postpartum depression! My family is going to climb in the Helderberg Mountain range – with our pups! – to participate in this great event! Get out your hiking shoes and join us!

“If you are reading this blog, you are one of us. Or you love or care for people like us. We are the 15% of new or pregnant moms who have postpartum depression, anxiety, psychosis or other related mood disorders. And we have all benefited greatly from the peer support we find here on Postpartum Progress.

Katherine Stone was a beacon of light during the darkest time of my life. I suffered from postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder (the mood disorder where you get terrible, scary thoughts that won’t go away) that began after the birth of my son Henry over four years ago. I was lucky to get professional help early due to the support system I had in my life, yet I still suffered tremendously. Not even the best psychiatrist in the world can help you heal totally from the horror of having had awful thoughts that sometimes involve images of hurting your own child. One night in despair I stumbled upon Postpartum Progress. Finding Katherine and this amazing community of postpartum mood and anxiety disorder survivors helped me find peace. I felt for the first time since my son was born (and not just from my therapist telling me) that I was not alone on my occasional forays to the dark side of this disease; in fact, I’m in the company of some pretty amazing women!

I’m now 4 and ½ years out from Henry’s birth and those terrifying intrusive thoughts are a distant memory. Yet I still relish the Mother’s Day Rally—each new author’s story and advice continues to comfort and reassure me that I suffer from a common disease that is treatable. I even had a second baby!

I’m also now on the Board of Directors of Postpartum Progress, Inc., the non-profit organization we created to help sustain the blog and to help people understand the massive size of the problem of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. This blog is now averaging 100,000 views a month and growing from women who are seeking help and support from all over the world. We need to do an upgrade and redesign of the blog, and we have recruited a team of volunteers called the Warrior Mom Leadership Team to help manage the ongoing content (which we’ll tell you about soon). Another goal is to upgrade the standard of care and education for women with these disorders by giving Katherine, our Board and our volunteers the tools to effectively collaborate with policy makers, researchers and key stakeholders.

Katherine can’t do this alone. Our Board can’t do this alone. We need funding and additional volunteers. And to raise money I think we need an event, so I’ve decided to take one out for a spin. I’d like to introduce to you the first annual Climb Out of the Darkness, an annual hiking event to support Postpartum Progress.

Every year on June 21st, the longest day of the year — the day with the most light, to symbolize our collective rise out of the darkness and despair of postpartum depression and its nasty cousins of anxiety and psychosis — I’m going to climb a mountain. If you are reading this blog, then you have kicked these illnesses or you are in the grueling process of doing so. You have climbed a metaphorical mountain of the highest heights. Join me in a much easier climb and help us raise money so that Postpartum Progress can continue to be there for women all around the world when they are in the darkness. Help us shine the light of hope with our words and our advocacy efforts for our fellow mothers to be educated and treated quickly.

If you want to join as a team member of Climb out of the Darkness, you can simply go to this page and click the big SET UP YOUR FUNDRAISER button and you’ll instantly have your own fundraising page as a part of our Team: http://www.crowdrise.com/postpartumprogress

I’m going to climb Mt. Greylock near my home in Western Massachusetts. It has an elevation of 3,488′ and is the highest natural point in Massachusetts. And don’t worry, when I say climb I mean I’ll take a moderate hike on the trails to the top. Katherine and her kids are also going to join in and climb her local Sawnee Mountain, with an elevation of 1,946 feet. She says it’s more like a large hill, but it’s still officially a mountain!

If you’d like to create your own climb for Climb Out of the Darkness, I can help you find a fun hike in your neck of the woods and can also help with suggested fundraising letters and moral support. And if you can’t do it on the 21st, do it on the 22nd. Whenever and wherever you can. You can also check out Trails.com to find local mountain and other hiking trails – from easy to difficult, whatever you’d like.

If you don’t have time to play this time around, you can go to the same link above and like it or tweet it or send an old fashioned email to your friends and family and ask them to support us, and by us I mean the millions of readers of this blog past and present, and what I hope is your favorite charity — Postpartum Progress, Inc.

And please know we’re going to do this every year, every beautifully longest day, with the sun shining strong and bright down on us as we celebrate the triumph of so many over these illnesses and hopefully inspire those still climbing up and out.

~ Deborah Rimmler

Remember Jammies for Babies by Hélène Laurè? The adorable onesies for a cause so perfectly packaged in a sweet little jam jar? That help fight postpartum depression by donating 10 percent of each sale to Postpartum Progress?Well now the offer is even sweeter with FREE SHIPPING on all orders received through May 15th!

As the first product to directly associate its inception and purpose with the fight against these devastating disorders, Jammies for Babies by Hélène Laurè deserves our heartiest support! I know two moms (one a new mother due any day, and the other a repeat mom who just gave birth to a baby girl) who will be receiving Jammies in the next week!

And yes, their little babies will be starting their lives by helping others!! Feel free to repost and help Jammies help other moms! And Happy Mother’s Day to all the very special ladies who have enriched our lives!