Dr. Carole Myers
Welcome to HealthConnections, the show about people, health, and policy. I'm Dr. Carole Myers. Postpartum psychosis is in the news currently because of the Lindsey Clancy case. We are not here to discuss the case. Instead, Dr. Aubrey Jones of the University of Kentucky College of Social Work is here to enlighten us about what postpartum psychosis is and how it can be better understood, identified, and treated. Welcome, Dr. Jones.
Dr. Aubrey Jones
Thank you for having me.
Could you please provide a simple profile of postpartum psychosis?
Postpartum psychosis is rare but still not completely understood. It falls within the same categories as postpartum mood and anxiety disorders, which are far more common. Psychosis is a really complex condition and can be affected from your environment, cultural factors, as well as biological factors, and it usually requires hospitalization. It affects about one in two women out of 1000 births.
We're hearing a lot of things about postpartum psychosis. Can you talk about common misconceptions?
Postpartum psychosis is a scary word. It does not automatically mean that someone will hurt themselves or hurt somebody else, but it does typically mean that someone has lost touch with reality. Some symptoms that people might be experiencing with postpartum psychosis include insomnia, elevated mood, depression, auditory, visual hallucinations, mood swings. They may have racing thoughts or irritability, maybe a little more restless than normal as well, confusion and bizarre behavior.
Let's segue now, Dr. Jones, to looking at treatment for postpartum psychosis. How can it be improved?
Again, psychosis is a scary word, and I want to really make sure that your listeners know that fear should never keep you or someone you love from seeking help or asking for help. But we really need more people to know the signs. A lot of times with postpartum mental health, we put the ownership on the new mother, but that's not always feasible, and so we need birth partners, we need doctors, we need more mental health providers to know the signs. And more importantly, we need a system that can respond well and respond quickly when somebody is asking for help.
So let's talk about that system. We've seen some in the news about failures or challenges that women face that are having symptoms. Could you talk a little bit more about the system?
Sure. So the system can be fragmented. Meaning it's really hard to get consistent help from one provider. And women typically will go to their OB/GYN after birth. And your OB/GYN may have 10 to 15 minutes of time with you, and they're really focused on your physical health. They might ask how you're feeling or how you're doing, and then refer you to someone else for mental health treatment - if they think that's needed. The tricky thing is that there's not enough mental health providers in the U.S. Specifically, we have a shortage of providers who are knowledgeable about postpartum mental health, which looks similar to other mental health problems, but is also very different.
This is Dr. Carol Myers, joined today by Dr. Aubrey Jones of the University of Kentucky College of Social Work. Thank you for listening to HealthConnections. All past episodes are available at WUOT.org for on-demand listening.
