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Imagine losing a whole year of your life to mental illness, being locked on a secure ward, being on suicide watch and wanting to die. In 1999, I was unfortunate enough to have puerperal psychosis after the birth of my daughter. It is the severest form of postnatal illness only affecting one in a thousand women. I had many horrible symptoms like excruciating levels of anxiety and terror, vomiting, fear of being left alone and a belief that life was no longer worth living.
After many months in a mother and baby unit I surfaced to a world of community psychiatric nurses, visits to the psychiatrist, drugs being increased and decreased as I attempted to function. It took a year to begin to feel as if life was worth living again and many more years before I felt ready to have another baby. I was lucky enough to have met another mum from the mother and baby unit who lived nearby and we became friends over the subsequent years.
My friend Petra Leighton originally comes from Austria where she was adopted as a baby. To this date she does not know her real parents. Petra had a good pregnancy and a relatively good birth. However, as time went by she became increasingly anxious and suffered from severe insomnia. She became frightened of going out, meeting other people and generally went down hill.
When her daughter was eight months old Petra was so ill that she was admitted into Thumbswood the mother and baby unit at the QE2 hospital in Welwyn Garden City. There she spent four months feeling depressed and suicidal. It took lots of different medication to get Petra well again. When she came out of hospital there was very little support out in the community.
When our daughters began school, we were determined to set up a support group for mums recovering from postnatal illness.
In September 2003 we launched our group and were amazed at the number of mums who attended. The overwhelming theme was the invisibility of this illness and the stigma attached to having postnatal depression. Petra and I were asked to set up a telephone service by the mums and soon we had created a three tier service with telephone, group and email support for mums across Hertfordshire. In September 2007 we launched our telephone support for dads and this has proved very popular.
In 2008, we now have a team of seven volunteers who help run Hertfordshire Postnatal Illness Support which gained charitable status in 2004.
Every volunteer has experienced postnatal illness and has recovered with the right help and support.
Our success is down to the hard work of our volunteers who help many families through an exceptionally difficult time.
Our work is to continually break the taboo of postnatal illness and support women to get the best help fast.
Postnatal Illness is known as the 'silent epidemic' in England: Hertfordshire Postnatal Illness Support is determined to break that silence.
For further information visit www.postnatalillness.co.uk or telephone Charlotte 01727 826627 or Petra 01727 823466.
Charlotte Wilmer
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