When Mom Gets Sick After Having A Baby

I have a lot of FB friends.  In the last month several of them have had babies and, afterwards, either they, or a family member, has written Mom is not doing well since she had the baby.  Whenever I read that I immediately begin private messaging, because I also got very sick after I had my daughter.  If I had it to do over again I would have been much more aggressive seeking treatment.  That’s why I private message, and that’s why I wrote this blog today.

We oftentimes don’t think about the mother after the baby is born.  My daughter was born on Friday afternoon.  I think there were 25 people in my hospital room on Sunday partying.  There’s nothing like a party in your room while you’re lying in a hospital bed after a C-section.

We take mothers for granted in childbirth.  I’m big into genealogy.  If you look at any family tree going back 200 years you see large numbers of women dying in, or after, childbirth. 

I didn’t feel well after I had my daughter.  I was told healing from a C-section takes a while.  By two weeks out I was walking upright, but I felt terrible.  I also had some physical symptoms I was complaining about to my doctor, who was on vacation.  I was actually complaining to his partner.  My complaints were brushed off as “normal”.  I asked a couple of my girlfriends how long it was before they felt well after they had a baby.  You know what I realize now, they didn’t understand my question.  They weren’t sick after they had a baby.  I told one friend how badly I felt and I cried.  She suggested I had post-partum depression.  A lot of people thought I had post-partum depression.  I didn’t have post-partum depression.  I was sick. 

At five weeks post birth the incision on my C-section burst and it was awful, vile and putrid.  I called my doctor, but my doctor had gatekeepers.  I insisted I needed to get in right away.  The gate-keeper told me I had been complaining and complaining and there was nothing wrong with me.  She said I had an appointment in a week.  I told her I could not wait a week.   I should not have called.  I should have shown up.  She gave me an appointment for the next day.

The doctor took one look at me and said, “Oh my God, how did this happen to you?”  He gave me strong antibiotics and told me to come back in two days.  He said if I wasn’t better in two days he would have to admit me to the hospital.  Thanks be to God my body responded to the antibiotics.

I was talking to a friend today whose daughter is suffering from post-partum depression after the birth of her second child and it’s really bad.  I used to work with a lawyer who had a daughter who was also a lawyer.  His lawyer daughter was more successful than her father.  She had post-partum depression after the birth of her first child.  Then she had a second child.  She very much wanted the second child.  After the birth of her second child she went into the woods and shot herself because she was scared she was going to kill her children. 

They want my friend’s daughter not to breast-feed because that can make the post-partum depression worse.  I was unsuccessful at breast-feeding.  In hindsight, I’m sure that was because of the undiagnosed staph infection.  We got to where we were taking my daughter to the pediatrician daily, at his request, because she was losing weight so rapidly, until she was put on formula.  I told my friend that in baby culture breast-feeding is drilled into you.  You suck as a mother if you don’t breast-feed, but what if you can’t?

My friend said her daughter didn’t like being tagged with a mental illness.  I don’t blame her.  Who wants that?  If it’s a mental illness is there an insinuation you can easily fix it, if you just put your mind to it.   I’m not a doctor but I would think it’s a hormonal issue.  After you have a baby your body has weird hormone things going on.  You get cold, hot, dizzy, all kinds of weird stuff.  Lawyers don’t normally take themselves to the woods and shoot themselves so they won’t kill their children.  That action, in and of itself, showed me post-partum is real.  Treat it, even if it means no breast-feeding.  Even if it means you need medication.  It’s not a shameful thing. 

Pay attention to mothers after babies are born.  These are medically treatable illnesses that need not become life or death issues.