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Why Postpartum Depression is a Feminist Issue

19 Dec

Five months ago today, I gave birth to a beautiful, perfectly healthy baby girl.  I had a smooth, uncomplicated delivery and was immediately enthralled with my daughter. Everything about her – from her little button nose to her ridiculously tiny finger nails – was absolute perfection. Admittedly, the first six weeks were the closest thing to torture I’ve endured: zero sleep, a stitched up vagina, sore nipples, and no mental capacity to do anything more complicated than brushing my teeth.

What was all this nonsense about childbirth “being totally worth it”?! I’m kidding. Sort of.

After those first grueling weeks, which I endured like a champ, I was hit with postpartum depression seemingly out of nowhere. Right as I was sliding into a comfort zone as a new mother and gaining confidence that one day soon I’d be able to hold an adult conversation again, the proverbial rug was yanked out from underneath me.  I spent countless hours sobbing, couldn’t eat, suffered from insomnia, and was convinced my life was over.  I felt like a terrible mother – I have this gorgeous, happy and healthy little human and I couldn’t stop crying or screaming at my husband long enough to appreciate my good fortune. I was crumbling on the inside and, like an out of body experience, was watching myself push loved ones away in the midst of uncontrollable outbursts.

It took weeks of urging from my husband, parents and friends before I relented and sought professional help. Today, I question why I waited. It boils down to one word: stigma. Women are supposed to love motherhood and embrace it with an almost unspeakable enthusiasm. So what was wrong with me?

I’ve spent way too much time pulling at that thread, and while doing so, realized that the stigma associated with postpartum depression is not unlike that of other “women’s” issues: rape, abortion, domestic violence.  Each of these involves complex emotions and they are, statistically speaking, widely shared experiences. However, they are also largely shrouded in silence, with expectations of guilt and shame. The feminist community has rallied around rape and domestic violence victims and has worked tirelessly to eliminate stigma surrounding abortion. And while postpartum depression is a complicated multi-layered issue, its feminist component is coming into sharper focus by the day.

By definition, postpartum depression is entwined with motherhood, which itself is extremely politicized and scrutinized: from how and where a woman gives birth, to whether and how long she breastfeeds, to her decision to stay at home or work, etc. It’s an issue that the feminist community has become increasingly vocal about. So why the silence around postpartum depression?

Postpartum depression is deserving of attention and action from multiple communities, including the feminist community. We need to raise our voices to increase public awareness of the issue, so that women do not feel stigmatized, and demand availability and access to support services. While it is experienced exclusively by women, postpartum depression has a ripple effect; and unless it’s addressed on a large scale, women and their families will continue to suffer in silence.

I firmly believe that speaking out about an issue is the first step in erasing its stigma. So this is me, speaking out and sharing my story, albeit a very abbreviated version.

Have you had experience with postpartum depression?

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Quick Hit: World Contraception Day

26 Sep contraception

On this World Contraception Day, I’d like to give a shout-out to birth control in all its forms. It gives me freedoms to and freedoms from, all of which I appreciate on a daily basis: freedom to determine the size and spacing of my family (one 9-week-old is enough right now, thankyouverymuch), freedom to follow a career trajectory of my choosing, freedom to enjoy sex without worry, freedom from horrendous menstrual cramps (this may seem like a minor inconvenience to some, but please believe it is not), freedom from being perpetually pregnant, freedom from STIs, and freedom from limited social and economic opportunities. Really, the list goes on and on. I owe my independence in large part to birth control.

What does birth control mean to you? Please add your thoughts in the comments section below, and hop on over to Population Council’s website to contribute to their word cloud.

Also be sure to check out these great posts in honor of World Contraception Day:

 

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V-Day: Day of Action for Birth Control

11 Feb iheartbc

While President Obama stood strong for women last week by requiring all insurers to cover birth control, the onslaught against contraception is far from over. Several Conservative members of Congress want to eliminate coverage for birth control entirely.  As Think Progress reports, anti-choice Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) is at the helm, introducing an extremist bill that would grant insurers the right to deny you coverage for ANY health service it deems immoral.

In response, NOW-NYC has called for a Day of Action for birth control on Valentine’s Day (February 14). Here’s what you can (and should!) do:

  • Change your Facebook and Twitter profile pictures to the “iheartbc” logo (featured in this post)
  • Tweet and post about why you love and need birth control using #iheartbc
  • Send some love to HHS’s Kathleen Sebelius (Kathleen.Sebelius@hhs.gov), who is being brought before Congress to defend birth control
  • SPREAD THE WORD!

99% of women use contraception. Don’t let the conservative, male-dominated 1% dominate the conversation — take action! Let’s show our solidarity with birth control!

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Tell Obama to Protect Birth Control!

30 Nov r-OBAMA-BIRTH-CONTROL-large570

Obama ran as a pro-woman presidential candidate. Now we will see whether it was all lip service or if he will stand up for women’s health.

Despite the fact that birth control constitutes “preventive care” under the Affordable Care Act — meaning it is covered at no cost by insurance plans — it looks as though Obama may expand the religious conscience clause concerning contraceptives. Catholic Bishops have been pressuring the Administration to do just this, which would allow religiously affiliated institutions that are not churches—such as hospitals, universities, and others—to refuse to cover birth control without co-pays for their students and employees.

This is not a surprising move on behalf of Catholic Bishops. What’s more surprising is how out of touch the Catholic hierarchy is with the lay Catholic population. According to Catholics for Choice, over 98% of sexually active Catholic women use birth control. Furthermore, 63% of Catholics believe that health insurance, whether private or government-run, should cover contraception. Right on.

Not to sound like a broken record, but religion has NO place in politics or health care whatsoever — especially a religion that has such little regard for women’s health and rights.

Do women a solid and call the White House to tell him to stand strong with us. He must not cave to extremist, religious pressures. Expanding refusal clauses to allow certain institutions and universities to refuse coverage for contraception is not what we want as a part of healthcare reform.

 

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Taking the Test

24 Oct hiv

By Linda Kokenge

I took an HIV test on October 4, 2011, four days before my 28th birthday.   A week or so prior, I decided that I needed to accomplish three things in my life:  get a job, move into my own apartment, and take an HIV test.  The first two things were relatively easy to accomplish. It was taking the test that scared me.

A little background on why I decided to take an HIV test.  I was black-out drunk when I met the man that I eventually called my boyfriend, who I’ll call Ronald.  I had gone out earlier in the night with a close friend, but ended up stumbling home alone after drinking a few too many whiskies. It was during my walk home that he and I met. What followed next is hazy; I can only recall bits and pieces of the evening. The one thing that I know for sure, though, is that I had unprotected sex with him that night.

As I would later find out, in 2008 Ronald had unprotected sex with a woman who was HIV-positive. When he finally told me, I was devastated.  I felt overwhelmed with thoughts of my own future and scared that I couldn’t trust him. Even though he claimed to be HIV-negative, thoughts about being HIV-positive were always in the back of my mind. When I finally came to terms with the fact that I needed to take the test for myself, I had a long conversation with my sister and called Planned Parenthood to schedule an appointment.

It’s hard for me to describe the feelings of gratitude I have for the women working at Planned Parenthood.  As I walked into the waiting room, the two women at the front desk recognized my feelings of anxiety, and were extremely professional when answering my questions. I immediately felt calm and more in control of the situation; I felt like I was in a safe space. These feelings of safety and support remained, even after I left an hour and a half later with my test result. Which, by the way, was negative.

I decided to tell my story for a number of reasons. Of all the emotions that I experienced while waiting for my test results, the feelings of guilt and fear created by the stigma surrounding HIV were the hardest to deal with. This needs to change. Accurate and real world accounts of people living with HIV should be accessible to young adults as they make decide to become sexually active. In order to be effective, these accounts must be based on facts and experience, not fear.

Along with the stress caused by social stigmas surrounding the virus, the stereotypes and misconceptions that are associated with taking an HIV test need to be addressed.  I was terrified to tell my loved ones and felt ashamed when I finally told my sister. No one should deal with the anxiety of taking an HIV test alone, especially when the source of those feelings is deeply rooted in misinformation.

If you have never taken an HIV test and feel like there may be a possibility that you have the virus, go take the test.  Find a Planned Parenthood in your area.  Surround yourself with people who care about you and do whatever you need to do to get there. The anxiety that you are feeling now is far worse than knowing the truth.  Whatever the result may be.

About the author: Linda Michelle Kokenge currently writes about feminism and social justice from her one bedroom apartment in Cincinnati, Ohio. A lover of dialogue and doomed sociologist, she hopes to someday start an after school program that puts critical theory to practice. You can find her on Twitter @feministeyeview or on her slightly neglected blog, Feminist Eye View.

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Free Birth Control for Everyone!

21 Jul bc

In the coming months, the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) is set to identify preventive health services that should be covered at no cost to patients, as required by the new health care law. For women, this would include mammograms and folic acid, as well as things like smoking cessation treatments.

But what about birth control?

Many advocates have been calling for birth control to be among the preventive services covered by insurance companies. There are many, many reasons why this makes sense. When you consider that birth control use is nearly universal among women in their reproductive years, it becomes even more clear how vital women consider family planning — for health and socioeconomic reasons. More specifically, as the NWLC points out,

Contraception is critical to helping women achieve healthy pregnancies.  Women who wait for some time after delivery before conceiving their next child lower their risk of adverse perinatal outcomes, including low birth weight, preterm birth, and small-for-size gestational age. And a planned pregnancy affords women an opportunity to make behavioral changes that lead to better birth outcomes…Many contraceptives have significant preventive benefits beyond their contraceptive benefits.  Oral contraceptives, for example, lower rates of pelvic inflammatory disease, cancers of the ovary and endometrium, recurrent ovarian cysts, benign breast cysts, and fibroadenomas.

Free birth control would also ease the burden of high health care costs for women, who on average earn less than men and pay more for health insurance:

On average, women earn only 78 cents for every dollar that men earn, and the median earnings of female workers working full time, year round, were $35,549 in 2009, compared to $45,485 for men. In addition, health insurance is often more expensive for women than it is for men and meets fewer of their needs.  Before the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies could refuse to sell a woman coverage due to her history of health problems or could charge a woman a higher premium on the basis of her sex…

Women are more likely than men to avoid needed health care, including preventive care, because of cost.  In 2007, for example, 52% of all nonelderly women reported a cost-related access barrier—not filling a prescription, skipping a recommended test or treatment, not getting needed basic or specialist care because of cost—compared to 39% of all nonelderly men. Preventive services are among those that women forgo because of cost; nearly half (45%) of women report delaying or not receiving a cancer screening or dental exam because of its cost, as compared to 36 percent of men. Evidence suggests that even moderate co-payments can cause individuals to forgo needed preventive care, particularly those with low and moderate incomes. (via NWLC)

Given the amount of change that will sweep through our health care system under the Affordable Care Act, the HHS asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to review what preventive services are important to women’s health and recommend which of these should be considered in the development of comprehensive guidelines. Earlier this week, the IOM recommended that women’s preventive services include improved cervical cancer & HIV screenings, at least one annual well-woman care visit, screening and counseling for all women and girls regarding interpersonal and domestic violence, AND (drum roll, please…..) “a fuller range of contraceptive education, counseling, methods, and services so that women can better avoid unwanted pregnancies and space their pregnancies to promote optimal birth outcomes.”

Ta-da! This is a very welcome development. There is a plethora of evidence — both anecdotal and clinical — supporting the need to make birth control available at no cost to patients. One can only hope that the HHS takes the IOM’s recommendations under consideration. Women’s well-being depends on it.

What can you do? Be sure to take a moment and sign the NWLC’s petition to make contraceptives available without co-pays…. and tell your friends to do the same!

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HR3 Up For Vote Tomorrow

3 May capitol-hill

I know, it feels like a nightmare replaying over and over again. HR3, one of the most anti-woman pieces of legislation in Congress right now, is up for a vote tomorrow.

As a refresher, here’s HR3 in a nutshell:

  • It manipulates the tax code to push forward an anti-choice — and anti-woman — agenda
  • It would make it virtually impossible for private insurance companies that participate in the new health system to offer abortion coverage to women (it eliminates tax credits for any insurance plan that covers abortion care)
  • It denies pregnant women access to life-saving procedures via expanded conscience clauses

This bill is likely to pass the House; so likely in fact, that I’d bet my life savings on it. But, there may be a light at the end of the shitty conservative tunnel. If HR3 passes the House and went on to pass in the Senate, Obama’s senior advisors are recommending he veto it.

Here’s what the Office of Management and Budget had to say about it:

The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 3 because it:  intrudes on women’s reproductive freedom and access to health care; increases the tax burden on many Americans; unnecessarily restricts the private insurance choices that consumers have today; and restricts the District of Columbia’s use of local funds, which undermines home rule.  Longstanding Federal policy prohibits Federal funds from being used for abortions, except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered.  This prohibition is maintained in the Affordable Care Act and reinforced through the President’s Executive Order 13535.  H.R. 3 goes well beyond these safeguards by interfering with consumers’ private health care choices.  The Administration also strongly supports existing provider conscience laws that have protected the rights of health care providers and entities for over 30 years, and it recognizes and supports the rights of patients.  The Administration will strongly oppose legislation that unnecessarily restricts women’s reproductive freedoms and consumers’ private insurance options.

If the President is presented with H.R. 3, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill. (Via RH Reality Check.)

Let’s hope Barry does the right thing.

While we wait, however, YOU can do the right thing by contacting your Congress representatives and telling them to vote NO on HR3!

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Lessons From a Stranger

6 Apr trustwomen

I spent my morning yesterday doing “clinic defense” in the Bronx. What does this mean? Basically ensuring that patients entering and leaving a woman’s health clinic were free from harassment. And, as with most feminist endeavors, I re-learned a very valuable lesson: you can’t presume to know every woman’s story.

It’s too bad the anti-choice harrassers haven’t yet learned this lesson. Case in point:

One man, who was accompanying a female patient, started to  engage with the protestors who were — unsurprisingly — urging the woman not to “kill her baby.” The interaction was quickly squashed and the man showed more control than I could have in his position. It was clear he was troubled, however, and he began to open up to me about why they were there.

Earlier in the week, the woman’s doctor informed her that she absolutely needed an abortion. She had nearly died giving birth to her first child, and this fetus was stuck and growing in her fallopian tube. If it was left to grow, it would likely explode, and she would face irreparable harm and possibly  death. Since she has no insurance, she couldn’t afford to have the procedure done at a hospital, which brought her to the clinic. She was devastated by the news and, already a mother, very much wanted to have this baby. But her health and life depended on not having the baby.

My point here is that every woman’s story is different. Nothing about abortion is black and white, and everyone — both pro-choicers and anti-choicers — should bear this in mind.

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Back Up Your Birth Control!

30 Mar EC

Happy Back Up Your Birth Control day of action!! Today marks the 10th anniversary of the campaign, which aims to raise awareness of and expand access to Emergency Contraception (EC).

Before I began expounding on why you should back up your birth control, let me first address a couple of misconceptions about EC. First and foremost, THIS IS NOT THE ABORTION PILL. EC does not interfere with established pregnancies. Rather, it helps prevent pregnancy if taken up to 120 hours after birth control failure or unprotected sex (the sooner the better, of course).

Second, it is not dangerous or harmful to your health. As Planned Parenthood explains,

Emergency contraception is safe. Even though it’s made of the same hormone as the birth control pill, the morning-after pill does not have the same risks as taking the pill or other hormonal birth control methods continuously. That’s because the hormone in the morning-after pill is not in your body as long as it is with ongoing birth control.

Millions of women have used emergency contraception. It has been used for more than 30 years. There have been no reports of serious complications.

So, why back up your birth control with EC? Simply put, because accidents happen. You can be responsible and use a condom and suddenly find yourself on the receiving end of a “holy shit, the condom broke!” moment. Which, trust me, is no fun. It’s my personal version of hell.

And you know what? Even if you choose not to use birth control and engage in unprotected sex, it’s still your right to obtain EC. (Although there are plenty of folks out there who would love to judge and accordingly dispense EC only to “responsible” women whose birth control failed — or not at all, for that matter.)

And lest we not forget, rape also happens. Unwanted, unprotected sex happens every single day and I can’t think of anyone more deserving of EC than a rape victim.

The bottom line here is that you can’t control your destiny without control over your fertility. I firmly believe that the ability to choose if and when to become a parent is one of the most determining factors in one’s future success. So back up your birth control, ladies! EC is a friend, not a foe :)

To learn more about EC, go here. And for a chuckle, check out EC e-cards!

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House Advances Anti-Woman Agenda: HR3 Heads for Full Vote

3 Mar capitol-hill

Today, the House Judiciary Committee celebrated Women’s History Month by passing the vile piece of legislation known as HR3 out of committee. It will now proceed to the House for a full vote.

According to Talking Points Memo, 22 Republicans and one Democrat (Puerto Rico Del. Pedro Pierluisi) voted to approve HR3 in committee.

In case you aren’t familiar with the naming of legislation, HR3 literally means this is the third piece of legislation the Republican House has taken up. Call me crazy, but shouldn’t JOBS and the ECONOMY be in the top 3? And correct me if I’m wrong, but there aren’t any job openings in my uterus…so why do Republicans have to get all up in it?

In the event that you’ve forgotten all that HR3 encompasses, let’s refresh:

  • It manipulates the tax code to push forward an anti-choice — and anti-woman — agenda
  • It would make it virtually impossible for private insurance companies that participate in the new health system to offer abortion coverage to women
  • It denies pregnant women access to life-saving procedures via expanded conscience clauses

This bill is downright dangerous, especially when combined with its counterparts, HR358 and the recently passed Pence Bill (to de-fund Planned Parenthood).

Rep. John Conyers (D – Mich.) put it perfectly:

this bill seeks to expand restrictions in current law and to impose an unprecedented penalty — by use of the tax code — on privately funded healthcare choices made by women and their families. Its goal — and effect, if ever enacted — is to make abortion and coverage for abortion services completely unavailable.

What a way to honor women and all of our collective achievements! The very achievements that, incidentally, would not be possible without the opportunity to control our fertility. Just saying.

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