AAB 024 Breastfeeding: Postpartum depression psychosis

Mary starts off by explaining to us how she came up with the name for her business. It all has to do with, believe it or not, how tall she is compared to the rest of Rhode Island. Mary is a middle child. Her mom breastfed all 3 children and at age 40 was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a mastectomy and is doing well. She had a loving childhood and tells us that having an older sister who is severely mentally and physically handicapped has taught her to be a strong person and to be grateful for every experience she has and to be a patient person. Mary reveals that she met her husband on match.com back in the days when it was kind of “racy.” She knew as a youngster that she would always want to be around kids and music. She is grateful that she has built her career around her family and music and what makes her happy each day. Mary shares with us that she had a very easy time with breastfeeding from the beginning with her baby crawling up to the breast right after birth and she says that it was one of the coolest things that ever happened to her. She realized she had an abundant supply, so much milk that it was spraying all over the place. This actually became a problem for her because it caused her breast pain and the need to pump frequently. Her lactation consultant suggested a care plan to lower her supply so her son could have more comfortable feedings. She went through dealing with oversupply issues and then colic and dealt with it, but realizes now that she was not taking good care of herself and she just did not know any different. She felt this is what life was like with a newborn. Mary was quite transparent and talked about suffering from postpartum depression, which was diagnosed at about 1 year postpartum. Her postpartum reaction was severe and she needed an inpatient program to recover and take care of herself. Listen to her story as she shares from the heart as she had to make some very hard choices. Mary tells us about how she got into blogging and podcasting. She started blogging because she wanted to share stories about her role as a parent and have fun with it. She shares the microphone with her husband Blake on Parentpodcast where she talks about topics that she wanted to learn more information about.