“Many health care providers overestimate the risks associated with medication use in pregnancy,” said one expert.
I wanted another child. A prior miscarriage left me empty, craving nothing more than to squeeze chubby baby thighs.
And yet, once pregnant again, my excitement felt distant and muffled. Like a pea beneath a pile of mattresses. I did not want to compare the baby growing in me to the size of a blueberry or kumquat, the way I did with my first., she said, with a wave of her hand. She placed me on a call list for the hospital’s mental health care group. Nobody ever called.I tried different doctors. “You don’t understand. This is bigger, worse,” I told the second obstetrics practice, and then a third.
The darkness gave way to panic attacks. I could no longer drive. My writing came to a halt. I spent days on the couch with my 3-year-old watchingJust before the December holidays, the third obstetrician scribbled a prescription: a low dose of the generic equivalent of Zoloft. I had had depression and panic attacks before. I knew that for my brain, in this state, Zoloft was the equivalent of using a plant mister on a raging fire.
“This isn’t going to work,” I told the doctor. I had struggled with anxiety for decades and tried nearly every class of medication to stifle my symptoms. I also have a Ph.D. in pharmacology and molecular signaling. I know both personally and scientifically that, sometimes, a low dose of Klonopin is the salve to my agitated neurons.
And note that receiving treatment is not the same as finding relief from symptoms. Those numbers are far smaller; less than 5 percent of people with perinatal depression experienced remission. Nonwhite birthing people and those living in poverty fare even worse. It’s estimated that
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