by Evelyn Pringle / April 15th, 2009

The promotion of the Mother’s Act is like a rewind of a bad movie dating back to the 1960’s when rock stars were singing songs about “mother’s little helpers.”

Women fought for years to gain acceptance of the fact that many female health problems were real and not symptoms of hypochondria. The psycho-pharmaceutical cartel’s profit-driven invention of an epidemic of pregnancy-related mental disorders will wipe out a century of work toward that acceptance.

Sadly, the end result of this latest marketing scheme will be that the relatively few women who truly do suffer from postpartum depression will not be taken seriously.

The Mother’s Act legislation has already passed in the US House of Representatives. A majority vote in the Senate would represent a major coup for a multi-billion dollar industry.

“Like many of the acts of Congress, the real beneficiary will not be the mothers and their children but the “mental health” workers who will be handsomely paid and the drug companies that are behind this legislation,” says Steve Hayes, the director of the Novus Medical Detox Center, in the center’s July 31, 2008 newsletter.

“The drug store chains will expand more because more people will be hooked on these dangerous drugs,” he points out.

“Doctor’s offices will be more crowded because we know that these dangerous drugs often lead to serious health side effects that will require medical treatment,” he writes.

The advocacy groups battling against passage of the Mother’s Act are nearly equal in number to the Act’s supporters, and include Unite for Life, AbleChild, the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology; Alliance for Human Research Protection; International Coalition For Drug Awareness; Law Project for Psychiatric Rights, Mindfreedom International, and the Citizens Commission on Human Rights.

Same Old Song and Dance

The Mother’s Act technique has been used again and again in this country. A new sub-group of people is identified as not receiving enough treatment for mental disorders and the drug makers funnel money to front groups to fund the disease marketing campaign and set up screening programs.

The internet is now flooded with reports about the rise in pregnancy related disorders and the places to find treatment. Websites with names like “Postpartum Progress” and “PerinatalPro,” provide links to programs that claim women need screening for postpartum depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, and eating disorders.

However, nowhere to be found, are reports about the sub-groups targeted in the past and all the depressed and anxious patients who became mentally healthy as a result of being screened and treated.

Dr David Cohen, a professor of Social Work at Florida International University and co-author with Dr Peter Breggin of the book, Your Drug May Be Your Problem, gave a keynote address titled, “Needed: Critical Thinking About Psychiatric Medications,” at the International Conference on Social Work in Health and Mental Health, in Quebec City, Canada in May 2004, and noted the following:

For the past 50 years, physicians in the West have been prescribing psychotropic drugs systematically to hundreds of millions of people to alter undesirable and disruptive emotions and behavior.”

“For the treatment of every single psychological affliction in men and women, in all ethnic groups, from the toddler to the aged, taking psychotropic drugs is now the cornerstone remedy, all other efforts secondary.”

“Despite the reliance on psychopharmaceuticals, however, not even modest improvements in the incidence, prevalence, relapse rate, duration, or long-term outcome of any condition routinely treated today with psychotropics, such as depression and schizophrenia, can be discerned.

Childbearing Years Represent Huge Market

Childbearing years cover women from roughly sixteen to fifty and the Mother’s Act proves the drug makers will go to any lengths to hold onto this market.

“The labels for antidepressants warn of the increased risk of SSRI-induced suicidality in youth and young adults, the women most likely to become pregnant,” Dr Breggin, author of the new book, Medication Madness, points out. “So the drugs not only threaten to cause the death of the mother through suicide but the death of the child through lethal birth defects as well,” he advises.

“The exposed fetus is at risk for a variety of potentially serious disorders, from cardiovascular anomalies to withdrawal symptoms at birth,” Dr Breggin warns.

“If pregnant women feel anxious or sad,” he says, “they should seek counseling or family therapy with the child’s father involved, along with other sources of emotional support.”

In February, with little to no fanfare, the FDA said it was once again evaluating the risk of birth defects of SSRI and SNRI antidepressants due to the number of adverse event reports.

Pregnant women and nursing mothers are rarely told that antidepressants take anywhere from three to six weeks to work, if they work at all. “We know that the natural history of depression means that many patients will improve within weeks whether treated or not,” says Dr David Healy, author of Let Them Eat Prozac.

“The overwhelming majority of women who are prescribed antidepressants are at little or no risk for suicide or other adverse outcomes from their nervous state,” he points out

“Treatment runs the risk of stigmatizing the person,” he says, “as well as giving them problems that they didn’t have to being with.”

“Only one in ten women will likely have a true response to an antidepressant even if they are depressed, so nine women will be subject to the risks for the one who might benefit,” he states.

According to Jonathan Leo, an Associate Professor at Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee, whose website, Chemical Imbalance is focused on debunking the “chemical imbalance” in the brain myth, the public health argument goes something like this:

“Helping one out of every ten does not sound very good but if you give the medications to 10 million people then you are helping one million.”

“This may be of little consolation to the nine million people exposed to potential side-effects,” he points out.

In December 2008, the FDA announced that anticonvulsants, widely prescribed as “mood” stabilizers, would now carry a warning about an increased risk of suicidality. They are also known to cause serious birth defects.

New Best Sellers — Atypical Antipsychotics

For a decade and a half, the new antidepressants were not only the best selling psychiatric drugs in the US, they became the top selling class of medications.

However, in 2008, antipsychotic revenues, at more than $14 billion, topped all other classes of drugs in the US, surpassing even cholesterol medications. The rest of the world apparently has not gone mad because the US accounted for over $3 billion of the close to $4.5 billion of worldwide sales of Seroquel, the fifth top selling drug in the US last year.

Anticonvulsants were the fourth class of drugs in terms of revenue, with over $11 billion in sales. Antidepressants held the fifth position, earning their makers more than $9.5 billion in 2008.

Like the SSRIs before them, the atypical antipsychotics are now prescribed off-label for everything from mild depression to anxiety to sleep problems to PTSD and ADHD, and for one reason. They are the biggest money-makers. The prices at a middle dose as of April 2009 on DrugStore.com were: Abilify 90 tablets $1230, Geodon 100 capsules $787, Invega 100 tablets $1168, Risperdal 90 tablets $716, Seroquel 100 tablets $839, and Zyprexa 90 tablets $1195.

The drugs were originally approved only to treat schizophrenia and later the manic episodes in patients with bipolar disorder. The National Institute of Health estimates that schizophrenia effects 2.4 million adults in any given year and 5.6 million adults have bipolar disorder.

“The story’s pretty clear, and pretty embarrassing for the profession of psychiatry, which has allowed itself to be led by marketing,” Dr Robert Rosenheck, a psychiatrist at Yale who has studied the expanded use and effectiveness of the atypical antipsychotics, told the LA Times on April 13, 2009.

“We know now what these companies’ strategies are: The number of people with schizophrenia is limited, so the road to profitability goes through soccer moms. They need to market these drugs to ordinary people who have dissatisfactions in life,” he said.

Antipsychotics come with serious side effects, some of them lethal. “The atypicals can cause a severe metabolic syndrome consisting of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular problems,” according to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania psychiatrist, Dr Stefan Kruszewski.

Diabetes is a major cause of vascular disease and the number one cause of adult blindness, end-stage kidney disease and non-traumatic amputations, according to a 2006 report by the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors.

“The atypicals have some of the same neurological side effects as SSRIs,” Dr Kruszewski says. “They also cause tardive dyskinesia, an often irreversible movement disorder.”

“Tardive dyskinesia looks so “strange” or “bizarre,” that it is often mistaken for a mental illness rather than a neurological disorder,” Dr Breggin reports.

“One variety,” he explains, “involves painful spasms of muscles that can literally torture the victim, and another involves an agonizing inner agitation that drives people to move their arms or legs, or to pace.”

“In some cases, the severe pain of tardive dyskinesia causes patients to become exhausted and ultimately disabled,” he reports.

“Tardive dyskinesia occurs at a cumulative rate of 4-7% per year in otherwise healthy patients treated with antipsychotics,” Dr Breggin says. “After taking the drugs for only a few years, 20% or more will be afflicted and older patient have an even higher risk.”

Helpless Children Harmed

There is no way to predict the adverse effects on the organs and bodies of children who receive psychiatric drugs filtered through pregnant and nursing mothers.

A study in the February 2004 journal Pediatrics reported abnormal sleep patterns, heart rhythms, and levels of alertness in babies exposed to SSRIs in the womb. The lead author, Dr. Philip Zeskind, told the Sunday Telegraph: “What we’ve found is that SSRIs disrupt the neurological systems of children, and that this is more than just a possibility, and we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of babies being exposed to these drugs during pregnancy.”

“These babies are bathed in serotonin during a key period of their development and we really don’t know what it’s doing to them or what the long-term effects might be,” he warned.

A year and a half later, Christine K sat in a neonatal intensive care unit and watched and waited as her baby lie in an incubator with tubes and needles stuck all over his body for four days.

After a single bout of psychosis following a traumatic event in her life, a psychiatrist labeled Christine schizophrenic and kept her on Paxil, Risperdal and Depakote for five years. When she became pregnant, the shrink told her the drugs were safe for the fetus. In fact, she insisted that Christine keep taking them even when she asked to go off the concoction six months into her pregnancy after reading that Paxil could harm her baby.

After looking up more information on the internet, Christine decided to wean herself off the drugs in her seventh month against doctors’ advice. However, when she tried to explain that she quit taking the medications long before the infant was born, Christine was informed that he would still have to remain in intensive care due to the fact that he had been exposed to the drugs in the womb early on.

For the first two years of life, the baby would not sleep for any length of time — waking up every two or three hours. For the first three months, his whole body would jump at the least little sound even when he was asleep. He could not suck hard enough to nurse and resisted bottles. For the first year, he required hours of feeding attempts each day to make sure he received enough formula.

He was three last October and still has a strong aversion to eating — “including cake, cookies and all the things kids will normally eat even if nothing else,” his mother says.

“He was well over 2-years-old before he started sleeping through the night,” she reports.

In addition to the extra hospital costs for intensive care, “in the first three years of his life, this child has needed more medical care and doctor’s appointments than my other three children combined,” Christine reports.

In this case, the problems were nondescript. Doctors do not know enough about the effects of psychiatric drugs on the developing fetus to know if or how to treat them. “All I can do is watch and wait and hope they resolve on their own,” she says.

Christine is by no means a supporter of the Mother’s Act. She was scared and worried for a year after her son came home from the hospital but not from postpartum depression, she says. “It was mostly guilt and fear over what the drugs may have done to my baby.”

Drugged into Madness

The drugging cycle with women often starts with a loose diagnosis of postpartum depression. “My daughter was one of those poor souls prescribed an antidepressant for a “possible” case of mild postpartum depression with no warning about the adverse effects of the drug,” says Marcia Christensen of Australia.

“This caused a devastating cascade of events with further prescribing of multiple classes of antidepressants, atypical antipsychotics, Lithium and electro-convulsive therapy,” Marcia recalls.

“She made several attempts on her own life, developed type I diabetes and had her liberty denied over a 3 year period,” Marcia recounts.

Her daughter, Rebekah Beddoe, has documented the family’s ordeal in the book Dying for a Cure, in which she describes her decline from an ambitious, successful career women to a chronic mental patient as a result of being diagnosed with postpartum depression.

After a kick-off with Zoloft, Rebekah was on six different drugs within two years, diagnosed with a myriad of different disorders and feeling like a psychiatric hospital might be her permanent home. Electric shock treatment came in the midst of numerous suicide attempts.

She credits a BBC documentary on SSRIs with saving her life because she immediately recognized that the bizarre behaviors began shortly after she took the first drug. Rebecca decided they had to go and gradually weaned off each medication one by one. It took her 9 months to get off the antidepressant because the withdrawal problems were so severe.

Rebecca and Christine are not rare cases. Mixtures of antipsychotics, antidepressants and anticonvulsants, now used as “mood” stabilizers, are regularly prescribed for the all “anxiety” and “mood” disorders sought to be marketed via the Mother’s Act. Drug cocktails represent dollar signs. A woman like Christine, taking Depakote, Paxil and Risperdal, can easily ring up over $15,000 a year for the drug makers alone in the US.

The doctors make out like bandits as well. “Psychiatry has increasingly replaced psychotherapy with something called “medication management,” which largely consists of symptom assessment and prescription updates,” Dr. Bruce Levine, author of, “Surviving American’s Depression Epidemic,” reports in the August 13, 2008 Huffington Post.

“Medication management typically takes ten or fifteen minutes and is scheduled every two to three months,” he explains.

While psychiatrists bill about half as much as they do for a psychotherapy hour, they can conduct a minimum of four sessions for every one psychotherapy session, he says.

Many psychiatrists do five- or ten-minute sessions, so they can complete five or six in the same hour that it would take to do a psychotherapy therapy session, including preparation and note writing, Dr Levine reports.

“The bottom line,” he says, “is that psychiatrists who offer only medication management routinely make nearly triple the income as do psychiatrists who provide mostly psychotherapy.”

* Article sponsored by the Houston law firm of Vickery, Waldner & Mallia

Evelyn Pringle is an investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption in government and corporate America. She can be reached at: evelyn-pringle@sbcglobal.net.

By Evelyn Pringle

Motherhood has fallen prey to the psycho-pharmaceutical complex. If new legislation known as the Mother’s Act becomes law, the drugging of infants through pregnant and nursing mothers will no doubt increase.
Congress has rightfully refused to pass this bill for eight years. The official title is currently the “Melanie Blocker Stokes Mom’s Opportunity to Access Health, Education, Research, and Support for Postpartum Depression Act of 2009.”

The legislation was introduced in the House during the 110th Congress on January 4, 2007, by Illinois Democrat Bobby Rush and later reintroduced into both bodies of the new Congress in January 2009, after the bill died in the Senate last year.

Democratic Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey, home to a large number of drug companies, and Richard Durbin (D-IL) are the main sponsors of the bill in the Senate.

In a March 30, 2009 speech on the House floor, Congressman Rush identified the target of this piece of legislation when he claimed that, “60 to 80 percent of new mothers experience symptoms of postpartum depression while the more serious condition, postpartum psychosis, affects up to 20 percent of women who have recently given birth.”

After the House voted to pass the legislation on that day, the Congressman stated: “H. R. 20 will finally put significant money and attention into research, screening, treatment and education for mothers suffering from this disease.”

However, he only mentions screening and treatment for postpartum depression. The true goal of the promoters of this Act is to transform women of child bearing age into life-long consumers of psychiatric treatment by screening women for a whole list of “mood” and “anxiety” disorders and not simply postpartum depression.

Enough cannot be said about the ability of anyone with a white coat and a medical title to convince vulnerable pregnant women and new mothers that the thoughts and feelings they experience on any given day might be abnormal.

The constant watching and barrage of questions such as are you depressed, are you anxious, are you moody, are you fearful of motherhood, are you sleeping well, are there changes in your eating habits, will predictably have the net effect of convincing many women that normal thoughts and emotions are a sign of mental disorders.

In the March 13, 2008 NewsWithViews article, “Branding Pregnancy as a Mental Illness,” Byron Richards writes:

“The Mothers Act has the net affect of reclassifying the natural process of pregnancy and birth as a mental disorder that requires the use of unproven and extremely dangerous psychotropic medications (which can also easily harm the child). The bill was obviously written by the Big Pharma lobby and its passage into law would be considered laughable except that it is actually happening.”

While mania, psychosis, agitation, hostility, anxiety, confusion, depression and suicidality are often cited as “symptoms” of mental illness, many of the same exact “symptoms” are listed as side effects on the warning labels for antidepressants, antipsychotics and anticonvulsants.

All of these drugs are now being prescribed to treat the “mood” and “anxiety” disorders that women will be screened for if the Act becomes law. In the case of pregnant women, no psychiatric drug has been FDA approved as safe for use.

The newly recruited customers will be stigmatized for life with labels of the most serious forms of mental illness simply because they are unlucky enough to become pregnant in the United States, where serious disorders lead to major profits from the prescribing of multiple classes of psychotropic drugs.

On September 1, 2008, Medical News Today ran a headline for a study that stated: “Americans Show Little Tolerance For Mental Illness Despite Growing Belief In Genetic Cause.” The study by University of Pennsylvania sociology professor Jason Schnittker showed that while more Americans believe that mental illness has genetic causes, the country is no more tolerant of the mentally ill than it was 10 years ago.

The study explored tolerance in terms of: unwillingness to live next door to a mentally ill person, having a group home for the mentally ill in the neighborhood, spending an evening socializing with a mentally ill person, working closely with such a person on the job, making friends with someone with a mental illness or having a mentally ill person marry into the family.

Multi-billion dollar industry

In an article for AlterNet on June 18, 2008, Dr Bruce Levine, author of the book, “Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic,” explains how the psycho-pharmaceutical cartel works. “Mental health treatment in the United States is now a multibillion-dollar industry,” he reports, “and all the rules of industrial complexes apply.”

“Not only does Big Pharma have influential psychiatrists… in their pocket, virtually every mental health institution from which doctors, the press, and the general public receive their mental health information is financially interconnected with Big Pharma.”

“The American Psychiatric Association, psychiatry’s professional organization, is hugely dependent on drug company grants, and this is also true for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and other so-called consumer organizations.”

“Harvard and other prestigious university psychiatry departments take millions of dollars from drug companies, and the National Institute of Mental Health funds researchers who are financially connected with drug companies.”

More Democrats than Republicans are supporting the Mother’s Act. The increased campaign funding to Democrats may well explain this turn of events. For the last eight election cycles the pharmaceutical industry has contributed far more to Republicans than Democrats. In the 2006 cycle the percentage was 28% to Democrats and 70% to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit group that tracks political funding.

But the Democrats were close to matching the Republicans for the 2008 cycle with $5,099,942 to Democrats compared to $5,680,871 to Republicans, which is probably why the Democrats would allow such an obvious drug marketing scheme to be implemented.

“The Mothers Act, while appearing like an Act of benevolence, is a dangerous and unnecessary measure that will result in the further over-prescription of drugs that are already grotesquely over-prescribed,” says Kate Gillespie, one of the lead attorneys handling SSRI birth defect lawsuits and Paxil suicide cases at the Los Angeles based Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman law firm.

“The Act is a slippery slope,” she warns, “toward the forced drugging of women of childbearing years with drugs of questionable efficacy and serious safety issues effecting mothers and their innocent children – drugs that can cause horrific side effects, including, suicidal behavior, violence and devastating birth defects.”

“Of course, mothers who truly cannot cope should be helped,” Ms Gillespie says, “but do we really need legislation requiring mothers to be screened and drugged?”

“Take out politics and Big Pharma and the push for this legislation just doesn’t make sense,” she states.

“For politicians, a much safer issue than pushing drugs for pregnant mothers is promoting the expansion of medical treatment for postpartum depression,” according to Dr Levine.

He says the Mother’s Act “omits relevant truths” about Melanie Blocker-Stokes, the woman the bill is named after, and the following information about her suicide should be made known:

“Blocker-Stokes… did in fact receive extensive psychiatric treatment. She was hospitalized three times in seven weeks, given four combinations of anti-psychotic, anti-anxiety, and antidepressant medications, and underwent electroconvulsive therapy (electroshock). But despite her psychiatric treatment — or because of it — Melanie Blocker-Stokes jumped to her death from the twelfth floor of a Chicago hotel.”

“There is no evidence that antidepressant use by depressed mothers lowers their likelihood of suicide,” Dr Levine says, “and there is a great deal of evidence that antidepressant use can make some people manic, agitated, and violent.”

Money-making promoters behind the Act

Katherine Stone runs an internet website called “Postpartum Progress” and posts a daily blog. She also serves on the board of Postpartum Support International as the public relations outreach chairwoman. Her Bio says she “is a nationally-recognized, award-winning advocate for women with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.”

“In 2001,” Katherine reports on her website, that “she suffered postpartum obsessive compulsive disorder after the birth of her first child. The feeling of isolation and shame she suffered inspired her to create Postpartum Progress, which has become the most widely-read blog in the United States on postpartum depression, postpartum OCD, antepartum depression, postpartum PTSD and postpartum psychosis.”

On another page titled, “The Art of Psychiatric Medication,” Katherine tells women to hang in there if a medication does not work because for her diagnosis of OCD, she states:

“I’ve taken many medications, including Effexor, Celexa, Seroquel, Risperdal, Wellbutrin, Luvox, Cymbalta, etc. Throughout all of them, I was on the road to recovery. Some just worked better than others at treating my symptoms.”

She ends the commentary by telling women: “You will find the right medication for you, and you will get better.”

The prescribing of seven drugs, including two antipsychotics and five antidepressants, to treat OCD is a typical example of the profit-driven drugging that women snagged by the Mother’s Act will face, but it’s a far cry from the description Katherine wrote about regarding the comparatively minor treatment she received, when she stated in the June 7, 2004 issue of Newsweek, “in my case, that meant taking an antidepressant and going for weekly therapy sessions.”

Aside from all the serious health risks now known to be associated with these drugs, most women could not afford the 7-drug “cure” that Katherine ingested. According to DrugStore.com in December 2008, from first to last, at a middle dose for a 30-day supply, the drugs would cost: Effexor $197.86, Celexa $279.92, Seroquel $388.38, Risperdal $652.07, Wellbutrin XI $202.08, Luvox CR $135.99, and Cymbalta $366.62. The cost of “etc” is impossible to calculate without knowing how many more drugs she took.

In a March 11, 2009 Postpartum Progress blog, Katherine plugs herself for speaking jobs, along with a study that concluded “the Internet is a viable and feasible tool to screen for PPD.”

“I’ll be adding this study to the speech I give on how women with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders use the Internet,” she reports, and then adds:

“If you’re interested in having me speak at your event, let me know!”
On March 10, 2009, Katherine’s headline read: “It’s Petition Signing Time! Get Out Your Virtual Pen & Support Women with PPD”, and reported “that Susan Stone over at Perinatal Pro is alerting everyone to the new petition created by the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance to support the Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act. She states that last year’s petition generated more than 24,000 signatures. The petition has been reintroduced this year to try and get this legislation passed once again.”

The blog carried a live link to a page where “you can scroll down, enter your zip code and generate letters of support in a matter of seconds for the Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act that will be sent to your local Congresspeople and Senators.”

Katherine further told readers: “I know you’re thinking ‘but I already did that last year.’ Well that was then and this is now. Do it again.” The 2007 Annual Report for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance shows this Big Pharma front group received between $150,000 and $499,000 from AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Wyeth. Abbott Labs, Cyberonics, Eli Lilly, Forest Labs, GlaxoSmithKline, Organon, and Otsuka American Pharmaceuticals each gave between $10,000 and $149,999.

The 2006 Annual Report shows that AstraZeneca gave the group more than $500,000. Abbott Labs, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Wyeth gave between $150,000 and $499,000, and Forest Labs, Glaxo, Janssen, Pfizer, and Shire Pharmaceuticals each gave between $10,000 and $149,000. The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance in Baltimore also received $5,000 from Eli Lilly in the first quarter of 2008, according to Lilly’s grant report.

In the section of the 2007 Annual report “at a Glance: How We Met Our Mission,” among the things accomplished by the group, it states:

“Promoted Melanie Blocker-Stokes Postpartum Depression Research & Care Act at invitation of Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.)

“Promoted MOTHER’s Act at invitation of Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)”
After writing letters to Congress through the link established by the industry funded Alliance, those visiting Postpartum Progress will hopefully click on the link to Amazon and buy the book “Perinatal and Postpartum Mood Disorders: Perspectives and Treatment Guide for the Health Care Practitioner” by none other than the Perinatal Pro “expert,” Susan (Dowd) Stone, and Alexis Menkin, at a special price of $43.20, for a savings of $10.80.

Katherine also provides a link to the PerinatalPro website, where women can find treatment for all the “mood” and “anxiety” disorders diagnosed with internet screenings at “Blue Skye Consulting,” where Susan is listed as the Managing Director and Owner.

She also served as president of Postpartum Support International from 2006 – 2008, as vice-president and Conference Chair in 2005 – 2006, and will chair the group’s President’s Advisory Council through 2010. This group brags of being the leading proponent of the Mother’s Act. On March 2, 2009, Susan’s PerinatalPro Blog announced: “The Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act moves forward!” and stated:

“Thank you to Congressman Bobby L. Rush, U.S. Senator Robert Menendez and Senator Richard Durbin for your unceasing efforts on behalf of America’s mothers!”

She should have thanked these members of Congress for boosting her career status and yearly income from her treatment center, speaking fees and book sales.

On PerinatalPro, Susan posts a running list of supporters for the Mother’s Act. On March 27, 2009, the list included many drug company funded groups. For instance, the American Psychiatric Association is listed as a supporter. In 2006, the pharmaceutical industry provided close to 30% of the Association’s $62.5 million in financing, according to the July 12, 2008 New York Times.

In the first quarter of 2007, Eli Lilly gave the Association grants worth more than $412,000, according to Lilly’s grant report. The group also received $623,190 from Lilly in the first quarter of 2008.

In her PerinatalPro blogs, Susan has nothing but praise for Katherine’s website and directs visitors back to Postpartum Progress with a live link. On March 16, 2009, Katherine posted a “Quick Survey on Postpartum Anxiety,” and wrote:

“The fabulous Karen Kleiman has asked me to ask you to participate in a short, five-question online survey on anxiety. She says ANYONE can answer it, regardless of the age of their baby(s) and regardless of diagnosis or lack thereof. ANY mother should answer the questions. It’s super quick — I know because I took it myself.”

Kleiman must be fabulous because she has three books for sale on Postpartum Progress with links to purchase them on Amazon. In fact, there are a total of fourteen books for sale on Katherine’s site from which she most likely gets a kick-back with every sale.

Kleiman’s survey is an excellent example of the methods used to con women into suspecting they are mentally ill via the “expert” blogs. The preface states: “The questions on this survey can be answered by a new mother of an infant or an empty-nester with good recall of the early days with her baby. Please answer as honestly as you can.”

The question, capital letters and all, reads: “When you were carrying your baby down a flight of stairs, did you EVER, at ANY time, have ANY thought, image or concern that you could accidentally drop your baby?” The survey further tells women:

If you answered YES to the first question, please describe the type of worry you had: Scary thoughts about dropping the baby, Scary images about dropping the baby, Both thoughts and images, Other.

How much distress did this cause you? A Great deal of distress, Some distress but I quickly got over it, Some distress that seemed to linger, Not much stress

Did this thought or image occur once or did it recur? Only once, It recurred frequently, It recurred persistently, It occurred off and on, Did you ever tell anyone about the fear of dropping the baby? (Please describe why you chose to tell someone or why you chose not to)

As a mother with good recall, the “honest” answer is yes, with two babies born 4 years apart, every single night as I stumbled out of bed half asleep for a nightly feeding, my normal fear instinct kicked in and warned me to be careful not to trip and fall down the stairs or drop the baby.

Women who take the survey are told nothing about what the results mean; but clearly the seed is planted that something is wrong if you “EVER, at ANY time, have ANY thought, image or concern that you could accidentally drop your baby”.

Katherine’s website also provides links to the “Top Women’s PPMD Treatment Programs & Specialists.” The first link on the list takes women to the “Emory Women’s Mental Health Program” that primarily focuses on “the evaluation and treatment of emotional disorders during pregnancy and the postpartum period,” according to Emory University’s website. Lilly’s 2008 first quarter grant report shows Emory’s Department of Psychiatry received $25,000.

The “experts” at Emory include some top pharmaceutical industry shills. For example, a link to “Articles” brings up roughly 90 studies and papers that include the co-author Dr Charles Nemeroff. Nemeroff is on an ever-growing list of academic researchers in the field of psychiatry under investigation by the US Senate Finance Committee for not disclosing millions of dollars of income from the makers of psychotropic drugs.

Emory’s investigation found he was paid more than $960,000 by Paxil maker, GlaxoSmithKline, from 2000 through 2006, but listed less than $35,000 on his Emory disclosure forms. All totaled, Nemeroff had earnings of $2.8 million from speaking and consulting arrangements with drug companies between 2000 and 2007, but only disclosed a fraction of that amount, according to the Senate Finance Committee reports.

On July 23, 2008, Medscape Psychiatry & Mental Health posted an article by Nemeroff titled: “Weighing Risk and Benefit for Treatment of Depression in Pregnancy and Post Partum”. On March 17, 2009, the Medscape website stated: “This article is temporarily unavailable.”

Maybe that’s because the “top expert,” Dr Nemeroff, recently stepped down as chairman of Emory’s psychiatry department.

Evelyn Pringle is an investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption in government and corporate America. She can be reached at: epringle05@yahoo.com

YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK

Mental health screening targets moms-to-be

Questionnaire will be used to determine ‘depression’ in patients

A bill that would subject pregnant women to mental health screenings – and possibly medications that would follow any diagnosis of “depression” – has returned and already is more than halfway through Congress, a concerned family group is warning.

WND reported a year ago when the plan was proposed to allow the government to order tests on mothers for baby blues. The proposal later died.

However, officials with United Nonprofits and Individuals for Truth and Ethics say the bill is back, and it already has been approved by the U.S. House and assigned to a Senate committee under the designation S.324.

It’s named the “Melanie Blocker Stokes Mother’s Act” after a pharmaceutical sales manager who killed herself by jumping out of a window after receiving four cocktails of antidepressants, anti-anxiety and antipsychotic drugs and electroshock therapy following the birth of her child.

UNITE leaders cite other examples of situations they say could re-occur should the bill become law.

2005: A 30-year-old Indiana mother taking anti-depressants ends up facing charges she murdered her two sons, ages 2 and 9.

2001: Andrea Yates is accused of drowning five children, ages 6 months to 7 years in the family bathtub. She had been taking anti-depressants Effexor and Remeron.

2004: Emiri Padron stabbed herself in the chest after smothering her baby daughter. Zoloft was found in her apartment.

New Jersey already has implemented a plan similar to the new federal legislation, and it currently screens new moms for conditions that could be treated chemically. Lisa Bazler, a former therapist, told WND the federal plan is essentially the same as the 2008 proposal, which specified the government “shall” educate women concerning postpartum depression “before such women leave their birthing centers” as well as “screen new mothers for postpartum conditions.”

The newest plan makes some changes in the wording, ordering that officials are “encouraged” to do research on postpartum conditions and that “activities … shall include conducting and supporting” research, development of better screening and “information and education programs for health care professionals and the public.”

Bazler told WND the key is the wording that provides no informed consent for those who are being “studied” and “treated.”

“The vagueness of the language this year means that they will probably do even more than we can imagine – there is no specificity to lock them into any sort of exact program,” she warned. “They can do with it what they want.

“What is being done currently, if you look under the hood and at the legislative history of the bill and all the front groups pushing it, is a movement towards universal mental health screening – including mandatory screening of women as they do in New Jersey – and preventive drugging during pregnancy or postpartum,” she said.

UNITED has a link to a YouTube video that shows one family’s encounter with Effexor, an anti-depressant. The video also is embedded here:

An organization called Able Child has launched an online campaign to allow those interested to e-mail Congress with their concerns.

“Tell them you strongly oppose the MOTHERS Act,” said Patricia Weathers and Sheila Matthews of Able Child on the website.

According to Bazler, the bill would impose “a highly subjective questionnaire” on mothers about their moods, generating diagnoses that could include depression.

“These labels almost ALWAYS lead to an antidepressant drug prescription, and antidepressants are known to cause SERIOUS SIDE EFFECTS including suicide, homicide, and infant death,” she wrote.

New Jersey’s “first-of-its-kind” law requires doctors to “educate expectant mothers and their families” about postpartum depression and to screen the mothers for the condition.

UNITE founder Amy Philo has described her own experience with Zoloft.

“I had a hallucination where I was walking past the stairs, and I was carrying my son to the bassinet,” Philo said. “I looked over and visualized a ghost of me standing on the stairs and throwing him over. That’s when I thought I was really about to snap.”

She sought a change in her prescription and ended up locked up in a hospital.

“There was no counseling or anything. I was locked up like a prisoner, and I was there from Saturday to Monday.” Finally, she quit taking her prescription completely. “That’s when I finally got better.”

Alameda, CA: Christy was taking an antidepressant when she became pregnant, and, like hundreds of women, didn’t think anything of it at the time. In fact, it was only recently when she started doing some research that she began to wonder if her daughter’s heart condition could be an SSRI birth defect.

“My daughter was born about 5 weeks premature,” Christy said. “She was in the hospital for 4 weeks after her birth so the doctors could run tests on her, because her birth was so traumatic. They found that she has a heart condition, and had underdeveloped lungs.”

Her daughter also suffered from apnea, which is a dangerous condition where the muscles controlling the lungs don’t move and the volume of the lungs remains the same. Prolonged apnea leads to a serious lack of oxygen in the blood, and in worst case scenarios can cause death. “I couldn’t bring my daughter home for several weeks, until she was strong enough. She also had withdrawal symptoms from Lexapro the first 4 days or so when she was born.”

Christy’s daughter was born with bicuspid aortic valve, which means that her daughter’s aorta had 2 valves, instead of the normal 3. The valves lead the blood away from the heart and to the aorta, so this is not an insignificant defect. “The doctors said that over time they will wear more rapidly than if there were 3 valves, and this might result in heart problems and the need for surgery,” Christy said. “So over time, when she is an adult she will have to take good care of herself. I don’t understand how this happened because there is no history of this type of thing in our family.” If there were it might help explain why her daughter has this rare condition, which some estimates suggest affects between 1-2 percent of the population.

Not surprisingly, Christy had to take her daughter for regular check-ups to make sure her daughter was not in any further danger. “Now the doctors say she doesn’t need to be checked until she is 5,” Christy said. “But she still seems to have poor circulation.” Throughout her pregnancy, and while her infant daughter was in the hospital immediately following her birth, no one mentioned anything to Christy about the possible birth defects associated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants. Nor did anyone mention that the SSRI she had been taking may have been the cause of her daughter’s withdrawal symptoms.

Christy’s situation is not unusual. A study of 500,000 women, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2007, found that 50 percent of women taking a prescription drug during pregnancy were not aware that those drugs could cause birth defects, because they had not been warned about getting pregnant while on the drugs. Notably, the investigators said that women being prescribed drugs like SSRIs should be counseled about the risks before they begin taking the drugs.

“I hadn’t seen any information about SSRI birth defects, until her father told me he had seen something on television,” Christy said. “He said he’s seen something about the medicine I was taking that caused the kinds of problems my daughter had when she was born. So I started doing some research on the Internet, and the stories I read from other women made me think that maybe the Lexapro could have caused the heart problem, but I don’t know.”

SSRI Antidepressants and Birth Defects

The antidepressants known as SSRIs include Paxil marketed by GlaxoSmithKline, Prozac by Eli Lilly, Zoloft by Pfizer, and Celexa and Lexapro sold by Forest Laboratories, along with various generic versions of the drugs. The closely-related class of SNRI antidepressants also carry birth defects warnings and include Wyeth’s Effexor and Lilly’s Cymbalta.

In July, 2006, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered manufacturers of SSRIs and SNRIs to carry warnings on their labels about the risk for persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN). However, of all the SSRIs to come under fire, Paxil is possibly the most widely publicized.

In 2005, the FDA issued a public health warning regarding Paxil. The warning was based on findings from 2 studies which showed an increased risk for birth defects in babies born to women taking the drug during pregnancy. In fact, the studies showed a 1 to 2 times greater risk of having a baby with a heart birth defect while on Paxil. In conjunction with the warning, the FDA placed Paxil in its second highest category of drugs known to cause birth defects.

As if any more proof was needed, a study published in the November 2008 issue of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology reported a 3 times greater risk for heart defects in babies born to mothers taking either Prozac (fluoxetine) or Paxil. The study looked at babies born to 800 women who said they took either drug during the first trimesters of their pregnancies. Comparison was then made to 1,400 expectant mothers who were not on antidepressants of any kind.

Unfortunately, Christy is not likely to ever find out if her daughter has SSRI-related birth defects. Had she known at the time of her pregnancy, that is to say had she been informed of the possible problems as the experts of the 2005 study recommended, Christy would have done things differently.

Source: http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/12048/paxil-birth-defects-ssri.html

Springhill, FL: Kristine’s son was born without incident – a healthy baby boy. He is now 4 years old and was recently diagnosed with a condition that could kill him if his parent’s aren’t vigilant. It turns out he was born with this condition, and Kristine wonders if the Paxil she took while pregnant could have contributed – could it be a Paxil birth defect?

“My son has severe asthma – which became evident when he was around 11 to 12 months old,” Kristine said. “I woke up one night to check on him and saw that his lips were blue. I’ve taken CPR and first aid so I knew that he was not getting oxygen.”

And so it began, Kristine’s son was diagnosed with asthma and was put on the appropriate medications. But then things got worse. She kept her baby monitor on at night and would hear her son gagging in his sleep. Kristine took her son to the pediatrician several times about the problem, recognizing that her son could suffocate in his sleep. But she wasn’t satisfied with the answers so she went to an ear, nose and throat specialist.

“He put my son under anesthetic, and did a scope, and they found a flap of cartilage in his Adam’s apple. The doctor said that my son was born with this defect.” Kristine said. While she has no way of knowing if Paxil caused this, she does wonder.

“I read information about birth defects associated with antidepressant use and it got me thinking,” she said. Kristine took Paxil before she was pregnant and throughout her pregnancy, and her health care professionals said there shouldn’t be any problems.”

SSRI Birth Defects and Paxil Babies

Kristine, like many women, knew that the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) she was taking carried warnings about the risk of birth defects associated with the use of the drug during pregnancy. That’s why she asked her doctor about staying on her medication. “I was on the lowest dose of Paxil possible, and I was told that it would be fine,” Kristine said.

Kristine did everything right, she asked the right questions at the right time, but she still has doubts. “I have a 12 year old daughter who is completely healthy, and I didn’t take anything while I was pregnant with her,” Kristine said. “And I have a friend who was also taking an antidepressant while pregnant and her son has asthma, and developmental problems. And then I read other women’s stories, many of which are very similar, and I wonder if there’s a link between their children’s health problems and antidepressant use during pregnancy.

Paxil isn’t the only drug that has been linked with birth defects. The SSRIs Prozac by Eli Lilly, Zoloft by Pfizer, and Celexa and Lexapro sold by Forest Laboratories, along with various generic versions of the drugs are also controversial. And the closely-related class of SNRI antidepressants, which include Wyeth’s Effexor and Lilly’s Cymbalta, also carry birth defects warnings.

Just what are the birth defects? The published studies so far, and they are few, highlight the risk for persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN), and this is what the package warnings refer to.

However, in 2007, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that the use of antidepressants in the first 3 months of pregnancy more than doubles the risk of and craniosynostosis (premature closure of the connections between the bones of the skull before brain growth is complete), omphalocele (the child’s abdomen does not close properly allowing intestines and other organs to protrude outside the body), and anencephaly (birth without forebrain).

Although Kristine’s son birth defect may not seem dramatic, it is life threatening. He must sleep upright as precaution against his choking to death, and his parents will obviously continue to monitor him. But one has to ask, could all this worry and suffering have been prevented?

Drugs for the treatment of severe depression, which are prescribed to tens of millions of Americans each year, may increase the risks of sudden cardiac death and fatal heart disease in otherwise healthy women, according to medical researchers.

The family of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, includes popular names like Prozac, Lexapro, Zoloft, and Paxil. They are part of a booming pharmaceutical industry and generally considered to be safer and more effective than first-generation anti-depressants, called tricyclic antidepressants.

However, SSRIs have been linked to severe side effects before, including suicides, loss of sex drive, and birth defects in children born to women taking the drugs during pregnancy. The new findings are the latest to find severe cardiovascular problems, which is a leading cause of death among Americans, associated with taking the drugs.

Researchers Find Depression Drugs Linked to Heart Problems

Doctors from the University of California, San Diego and Columbia University focused on data from 63,469 women participating in a medical study. They found that women with depression were more than twice as likely to experience sudden cardiac death and about 40 percent more likely to die from heart disease compared to women without depression.

The researchers further suggested that taking SSRIs might have increased the risk of heart problems in women with depression. While stopping short of advising women to stop taking antidepressants, the authors of the research urged further exploration of the apparent link between SSRIs and increased risk of cardiac death.

Millions of Americans Take Antidepressants

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, antidepressants, including SSRIs, are among the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States. Out of the 2.4 billion prescriptions written in the United States in 2005, about 118 million were for antidepressants.

The numbers of antidepressant prescriptions continue to rise, with adult use of the drugs nearly tripling in the past two decades, officials said.

Birth injury lawyers are trying to gain awareness about certain pharmaceutical drugs that cause severe birth complications when taken by women who are pregnant. The fact of the matter is that birth injury lawyers want to make known that these drugs did not have warnings as to the negative effects of taking the drug while pregnant. A common drug in this category is Paxil, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline. Paxil is a very common drug used by women and teenagers battling depression and other types of mood behaviors. Paxil was heavily advertised to women and teenagers because their studies showed that these demographics incurred the most problems with depression.

Paxil was introduced into the market in 2002, and was a very successful drug peaking in 2006 with millions of people using the drug. However, what ended up occurring was that Paxil incurred many negative side effects. In the situation regarding teenagers, it caused them to develop very severe and complex forms of reality. Paxil changed the way of thinking for those who took the drug, often causing them thoughts of suicide and other dangerous acts that would cause users of Paxil to inflict acts of harm upon themselves. Other side effects that Paxil had on teenagers was loss of interest in things that they normally like to do, loss of appetite, and severe mood swings.

In the other category of common Paxil users were women, who incurred similar negative side effects as teenagers. However if a woman who was pregnant took Paxil, severe birth complications were incurred. In 2006, a warning label was finally put on Paxil that the drug is not safe for women to take if they are pregnant. This label change was put forth fourteen years after the drug was introduced onto the market, so what happened to all of those women and their babies who had incurred birthing complications who didn’t know that they drug was not safe? The most common birth complications were complications of the heart, lungs, brain and spinal cord.

Birth injury lawyers have represented thousands of cases where a woman who took Paxil during her pregnancy incurred birth complications. For over 14 years, women and their babies suffered not knowing that it was stemming from Paxil. Paxil’s warning label change in 2006 clearly shows that they should have done the proper testing 14 years earlier. If this was done thousands of lives would have been spared from severe pain and suffering.

If you or a loved one has been negatively affected from taking Paxil, contact a birth injury lawyer as soon as possible. It is not too late to file a lawsuit because the ramifications of the negative effects are so severe. In order to help your case along, make sure that you contact a birth injury lawyer as soon as possible. They will be able to assess your case and determine what steps to take next in identifying the proper solutions. Don’t let another pharmaceutical giant take over the lives of you and your child.

Paul Justice gives advice to clients who are looking for attorneys to handle personal injury related cases such as Birth injury and birth defects. To know more about Birth defect attorneys New York, Pennsylvania birth injury lawyer, birth injury lawyers visit www.birthinjurylawyer.info

Dr. David W. Tanton

Call in the Government Of Course

In 2006, the Governor of New Jersey signed legislation requiring health-care professionals who provide prenatal care to educate women about postpartum depression (“PPD”) and to see that new mothers receive treatment for the disorder. Then, in a press release, it was stated that 80% of women experience some degree of depression following childbirth. And, most recently, both Illinois and Pennsylvania are also attempting to get similar legislation passed as well.

Not to be outdone, in the United States Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has slipped a controversial bill called The Mothers Act into an omnibus package called “Advancing America’s Priorities Act” (S.3297). The legislation, as first enacted in New Jersey, would require pregnant and new mothers across the U.S. to be screened and treated because they are deemed to be at risk for mental disorders. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) jumped on the bandwagon, proudly proclaiming that, “We must attack postpartum depression on all fronts with education, screening, support, and research so that new moms can feel supported and safe rather than scared and alone.”

Fortunately, S.3297 stalled in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) committee for months. But the Democratic majority, ever concerned for the welfare of Americans, acted. On July 22nd, Majority Leader Reid circumvented normal Senate procedure by having the bill placed on the Senate Bill calendar without a vote in the HELP Committee. On July 28th, Senate Republicans filibustered the bill and blocked a full Senate vote and passage. Following Reid’s unsuccessful effort to force a Senate vote, the bill was withdrawn from consideration but remains on the Senate calendar and can be brought back for a vote at any time. There are only seven Senators cosponsoring the bill (Senators Biden (D-DE), Boxer (D-CA), Feinstein (D-CA), Inouye (D-HI), Kennedy (D-MA), Leahy (D-VT), and Lieberman (I-CT)).

The Mothers Act is supported by a powerful drug-funded coalition, including The Guttmacher Institute/Planned Parenthood, Postpartum Support International, National Mental Health Association, The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), Illinois Academy of Pediatrics, and the Illinois Psychiatric Association.

Follow the Money

These pharmaceutical-industry-funded groups are using the very same strategy as they did with Teen Screen (a controversial national mental-health and suicide-risk screening program for students and adolescents in the United States), although the focus is now on expectant mothers. The obvious objective is to find a way to broaden the drug industry’s market in every way possible. For years, it was adults (especially seniors). Once they had basically saturated that market, then they began targeting our kids (even very young preschoolers). Now, the only untapped large market appears to be expectant mothers.

Worst of all, though, is the deliberate attempt to get legislation passed. State by State as well as on a national level, to mandate mental-health screening, first with children and now their mothers. They would rather that you had absolutely no choice in the matter (an overt attempt to take away our freedom to make choices for ourselves and our children). They have already taken away our choice regarding healthcare by assuring that natural therapies and supplements are not covered by insurance. If they have their way, all of our health conditions (both physical and mental) will be totally controlled by the pharmaceutical industry and coercively mandated by our governments, both State and Federal.

Of course, the “accepted” treatment for PPD just happens to be counseling and drug therapy with antidepressants! And these same people are deliberately very specific as to exactly how the program is to work, assuring that they take advantage of every opportunity to diagnose a mother with PPD, who would thus be in need of the “appropriate medication.” An excerpt from Illinois Senate Bill 15 is especially representative of their approach:

"Physicians and other licensed health care workers providing prenatal and postnatal care to women shall assess new mothers for postpartum mood disorder symptoms at a prenatal check-up visit in the third trimester of pregnancy, prior to discharge from the hospital or other healthcare facility, and at the initial postnatal check-up visit and at each postnatal check-up visit thereafter until the infant’s first birthday.

Physicians and other licensed health care workers providing pediatric care to an infant shall assess the infant’s mother for postpartum mood disorder symptoms at any well-baby check-up at which the mother is present prior to the infant’s first birthday in order to ensure that the health and well-being of the infant are not compromised by an undiagnosed postpartum mood disorder in the mother.” (emphasis added) (See http://tinyurl.com/35zkec.)

But it gets worse. A “hospital” in Illinois is actually proposing that if a mother is even thinking about getting pregnant maybe she should be tested for depression! The following was posted at the Sierra Times website:

"The Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove, Illinois continues to recommend that SSRIs be used to treat pregnant women even despite recent warnings concerning birth defects arid other life-threatening disorders in children born to mothers who took antidepressants during pregnancy. ‘Any woman,’ the Hospital warns, ‘who is thinking about becoming pregnant, is pregnant, or had a baby within the past year can be affected by depression or other mood disorders.’” (emphasis added) (http://www.sierratimes.com/07/04/75_8_37_98_67891.htm)

Any doctor who would come up with conclusions that ridiculous must be normally influenced financially by the industry whose own financial interests would benefit, in this case by those producing and promoting antidepressants. (I personally think they should consider re-naming the hospital!)

Although it appears as a concern, just like TeenScreen, it is just another marketing strategy by drug companies to get everyone possible on their highly profitable medications. Unfortunately, far too many women have been placed on (and often remain on) antidepressants throughout their pregnancy, which just increases the potential for them experiencing PPD following delivery. As can never be emphasized enough, the highly elevated stress hormone cortisol, stimulated by antidepressants such as Prozac™ on a daily basis, is the best way I know of to deplete the mother’s adrenals, which are responsible for producing several critical hormones.

Mental Evaluations and Drugs Are Not the Answer

Most importantly, mental evaluations never have been, and never will be, based upon science. The “science” of mental health is really nothing but a collection of theories and opinions. If anything, it is an art, not a science. Thus, any evaluations would be based on nothing but someone’s personal opinion, as would be the solutions. And, as the promotion of the mental-health program is always funded (either directly or indirectly) by the pharmaceutical industry, the “proper solution” would obviously be influenced as well.

According to psychiatrist Dr. Grace Jackson, author of Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs: A Guide for Informed Consent. “Prescribing SSRIs as a preventative measure during pregnancy is a terrible idea.” (See http://www.sierratimes.com/07/04/04/75_8_37_98_67891.htm). In fact, regarding the overall scheme of screening all women before, during, and after pregnancy and putting them on SSRIs, Dr. Jackson has stated, “In sum, there could not be a more foolhardy public health practice than this one.”

As you will soon discover, though, there is a very good explanation for PPD, based upon science and not conjecture. Instead, as usual, there are effective drug-free solutions available.

PPD Explained

Suddenly going from an unbelievable high to an unexplainable low is not Bipolar Disorder or coming off of cocaine; rather, it is a surprisingly common phenomenon. In his March 2007 Alternatives newsletter (www.drdavidwilliams.com), Dr. David G. Williams does an excellent job of explaining exactly how PPD develops, as follows:

“PPD is a very real problem, but it definitely doesn’t stem from a drug deficiency. The added nutritional and hormonal stress of pregnancy often leaves the mother’s body chemistry totally out of balance following childbirth. One of the most common problems seems to stem from depletion of the adrenal (or stress) glands.

Physical or mental stress, poor diet (excess sugar or carbohydrates), skipping meals, alcohol, and smoking are some of the primary causes of weakened adrenals. During and immediately before pregnancy a poor diet, particularly consuming too much sugar or high-carbohydrate meals, will quickly weaken the adrenals. [WRITER'S NOTE: Coffee is also a stimulant known to deplete the adrenals, as is the NutraSweet™ found in diet beverages.]

During the first three months of pregnancy many women experience a great deal of fatigue and a total lack of energy. Beginning sometime during the second trimester they oftentimes get a huge burst of energy and heightened sense of well-being. These women will say things like, “This is the best I’ve ever felt in my life.” And this newfound energy remains with them until they give birth, when all of the sudden it feels like the whole world collapses around them (PPD).

During the second trimester the child’s adrenal glands begin to develop, along with the thyroid, pituitary, and other glands. And since the mother and child share a circulatory system she begins to benefit from the baby’s hormones. In effect, she begins to “feed off” the baby. She begins to experience more energy and that overall sense of well-being. It couldn’t get any better. Her body has discovered a fresh new source of everything she’s been missing.

But when the baby is born, the mother is abruptly cut off from her newfound lifeline. Within a day or two of giving birth, the mother can go from the highest high to the lowest low and never know what hit her. No one offers her an explanation. If anything, she might be told it’s normal to experience the depression and fatigue and it’s something she just needs to work through – and maybe some antidepressants might help.” (pp. 167-168) (emphasis added)

Recommended Drug-Free Solution For Postpartum Depression

Dr. Williams continues:

“The underlying problem, however, needs to be corrected. The adrenal glands (and often the thyroid and pituitary glands) must be given nutritional support. Sugar has to be eliminated. Additional minerals, B vitamins, and essential fatty acids (predominantly omega-3s) must be added to the diet. I’ve seen dramatic changes in just a matter of days through proper nutritional support, particularly using glandular supplements for the adrenal, thyroid, and pituitary glands. The problem isn’t correctable with drugs.” (Alternatives, 2007 March, p. 168).

• It just so happens that Standard Process™ is a company that has a dietary glandular formula for women called Symplex F, which contains all three glandulars (adrenal, pituitary, and thyroid extracts), which Dr. Williams recommends, along with ovary extract. They also have another formula called Drenamin™, with several plant-based nutrients specifically formulated for helping rebuild weakened adrenals. Their products are only available through doctors (including chiropractors).
• The adrenals (especially when depleted) need adequate salt. The only salt I would recommend is Celtic sea salt, sold through the Grain & Salt Society. It comes in coarse crystals and fine ground. As the “coarse” is cheaper, I would recommend swallowing one teaspoon daily with water. Or, you can use the “fine” for everyday seasoning. That is the only salt I have used during the past 18 years, and unlike common table salt, it is actually healthy as it contains over 80 trace minerals. Celtic sea salt is available at most health-food stores, or directly through the Grain & Salt Society.
• Avoid stimulants and stressors. As Dr. Williams recommended, avoid coffee, sugar, and NutraSweet™, as they all stress the adrenals. And most importantly, avoid physical or mental stress as much as possible. I would also recommend avoiding drugs such as Prozac™, which greatly increase the level of the stress hormone cortisol. If you happen to experience unavoidable stress for some reason, just take a couple of capsules of the very calming herb valerian root. It will safely help you relax, and it appears to do so without causing drowsiness.
• Stay hydrated! Don’t forget to drink at least ten 8-ounce glasses of water daily, which is especially important during pregnancy. The nausea many women experience during pregnancy is often the result of inadequate water intake.
• It’s also important to take a potent vitamin B-complex such as B-100, as well as a good multi-mineral containing at least calcium, magnesium, and zinc.
• Essential fatty acids such as flax and fish oils also play an important part in our mental health. I would recommend a minimum of two large soft gels of Flaxseed oil, and two of fish oil, daily.

Applying all of the above recommendations throughout pregnancy would greatly reduce the risk of experiencing PPD. Just remember that the typical approach of “drugs for everything, and nothing but drugs for anything” is a dangerous and self-destructive approach that never has, and never will, truly resolve any health issue, whether physical or mental.

This article was extracted in part from the 2007 book by Dr. David W. Tanton, Ph.D., Antidepressants, Antipsychotics, and Stimulants—Dangerous Drugs on Trial and expanded upon for this Health Freedom News article. Special thanks are given to Dr. David Williams for his kind permission to quote his writings from Alternatives in this article.

Dr. David Tanton graduated with honors from Clayton College of Natural Healing with a Ph.D., in Holistic Nutrition, and is the founder and research director of the Soaring Heights Longevity Research Center. He is also the author of the award-winning book A Drug-Free Approach to Healthcare. At the age of 74, Dr. Tanton is 100-percent drug free and is in optimal health. For more information, visit www.DrTanton.com.

Valley Home, AK: When Susan (not her real name) gave birth to her now 5-year old son, he had a lung and heart deformity. Susan had taken the anti depressant Zoloft, albeit briefly, during her pregnancy, and given all she’s subsequently read, now wonders if her son’s birth defects are SSRI-related birth defects.

When Susan’s son was born, he wasn’t breathing. The medical staff had to resuscitate him and place him in an incubator. He was then diagnosed with pectus excavatum. “It’s a lung and heart ‘deformity’ I guess you would call it,” Susan said. “It’s supposed to be hereditary but no one in our family has this. My son also has breathing problems, and some type of brain damage which had to be in uterus and caused oral and verbal apraxia.”

Apraxia is an impairment of the nerves or nervous system that affects a person’s ability to plan, execute and sequence motor movements. Verbal apraxia affects the programming of the articulators and rapid sequences of muscle movements for speech sounds. Oral apraxia involves nonspeech movements e.g., blowing, puckering, licking food from the lips – those kinds of things.

“My son didn’t talk until much later than is considered normal,” said Susan. “When he was 2 he just mumbled. And there were other things like he couldn’t put his tongue in his cheek, for example. He went to speech therapy for 2 years; that helped.”

So far, Susan has yet to receive any kind of diagnosis for her son, beyond those given when he was born, making treatment difficult. “He’s been tested for Autism, and the results were negative, but he does have behavioural problems, like anxiety and disruptive behaviour,” she said. “They think he has sensory processing disorder – but they haven’t given him a diagnosis of that. At one point they thought he had ADHD, and wanted to give him drugs for that but I refused.”

Not surprisingly, Susan has been doing a lot of reading, prompted in part by a need to try and understand what’s happening to her son, and in part by an ad she saw on television some time ago, describing SSRI birth defects.

“I saw a TV commercial and it got me thinking. I never thought that Zoloft may have played a role in his health problems, because my doctor said it was okay to take it,” Susan said.” I’ve read a lot, and I try to help my son. I love him, and I will do what I can for him. I wonder what the outcome would have been if I hadn’t taken Zoloft. As a parent, I want to know why this has happened – what caused it – because it would provide some kind of closure.”

SSRIs–also known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors–are a class of antidepressant. Until about 2005 there were no real warnings of the possibility of birth defects connected with the use of these drugs during pregnancy. All that changed, however, in 2005, when the first public warnings emerged from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about the potential for serious heart defects in babies born to women taking SSRI antidepressants during pregnancy.

SSRI Birth Defects
Susan’s son was born in 2004, before any of the public warnings were issued, together with the studies showing the link between birth defects and SSRI use in pregnancy.

To say that the situation Susan and her son are in is frustrating would be an understatement. Had Susan known in advance of the possible consequences, she would not have taken an SSRI during her pregnancy.

Worse, Susan is not the only mother with questions. There are many women with similar stories to tell. Chief among the many questions they would like answered is why weren’t the warnings issued sooner?