Lawmakers Introducing Package Of Bills Focused On Improving Maternal Mental Health
One bill would help bring federal money to California to develop programs and awareness campaigns. Another would require doctors to screen new moms for depression.
KQED:
Woman Seeks Help For Post-Partum Depression. A Nurse Calls The Cops.
With her first daughter, everything was fine. But four months after having her second, Jessica Porten started feeling really irritable. Little things would annoy her, like the baby’s glider chair. “It had started to squeak,” she said, “And so when I’m sitting there rocking the baby and it’s squeaking, I would just get so angry at that stupid chair.” She read online that this could be a symptom of post-partum depression – a condition that affects up to one in five women in California during or after pregnancy. The rates have spurred state lawmakers to introduce a package of bills to improve screening and treatment of maternal mental health conditions. (Dembosky, 1/28)