Ministering to Women With Postpartum Depression

0:00 So here we are. The MOM's come in, she's ready to abort and you know that actually, if she's had it in her past, she's likely to have it again. And so what do you what do you say to her as she's as she's contemplating abortion? I Am Yours, I am yours, I am yours. And Me, Lord, I am yours, I am yours. I'm welcome to the Gospel centered pro life podcast, a podcast designed to equip, encourage and challenge you in pro life ministry, and always with a focus on the Gospel. Stay tuned. I felt show passish touch your use me, Lord. Welcome back to the Gospel Center pro life podcast.

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2:30 some kind of situation that we deal with with a mom or something, somebody and we hey, maybe we should do a podcast about that, and that's where this podcast episode is coming from. kind of a weird subject, yeah, for some people, but it's something likely if you are ministering on the sidewalk, ministering to mom's that go to these abortion centers, you're going to likely place it. So what's our what's our subject? Yeah, well, this was actually a topic that one of our sidewalk missionaries contacted me and said that this mom had had gone into the abortion center was planning to abort and it was based on the fact that she had a history of postpartum depression, okay, and she was very concerned about going through that again. It had been pretty rough, pretty devastating, and the sidewalk missionary that contacted me really knew very little about postpartum depression didn't really know how to address it. So I thought that would be a good thing for us to talk about. I have had women with what I would consider baby blues. There is a difference between the less serious baby blues and exhaustion that probably every new mom feels and postpartiment depression. But so I did some research, contacted our high risk doctor and she sent me a couple of articles, contacted our wonderful doctor Matt Harrison, yeah, who is the pioneer of the abortion po reversal and and he

4:04 works with many moms, and asked him for some inputs. So that's how this particular article and podcasts developed. Okay. So, so the first thing you know is is the woman was threatening abortion and I believe the counselor had kind of talked her at least momentarily out of that. Okay, but then didn't quite know what now. Yes, what's next? Yeah, so what the things that that I counseled immediately were that we had a high risk doctor who she could contact, and I think that's number one thing, yeah, for for people to have in their rup. Yeah, absolutely, having some kind of medical professional that could speak to this stuff. And of course the best is that that medical professional is a believer in Jesus. Yeah, we're dealing with things like postpartum depression. I mean having an MD, certainly an Obgyn because she's dealt with that stuff before, for sure, yeah, but maybe having someone that deals in the mental health realm. Yeah, someone the deals in the counseling realm that's dealt with postpartum depression and maybe because it's not always easy to find an md or someone who's, like you, certified or whatever in this area. Yeah, maybe you can't find that, but having maybe a connection with a church that has a counseling center or something like that, but connecting them to someone that can get more in depth and that has dealt with these situations is probably one of the most important things you can do,

5:38 beyond praying. The share word moves in that sharation. Yeah, so in in this article, the first thing that I thought we should do is define what it is so that our kind slurs and anyone listening to this podcast really knows what it is. You may have a general sense, but the Mayo clinics definition of postpartum depression is first of all differentiates it from baby blues, which I have mentioned. Is that like a technical thing? Baby Blues, Baby Blues. That's what if they was in the article, they they and that's it's very common. You know, MOMS are new baby, new schedule, exhausted, all these hormone searging through you. So it is very common to have mood swings, crying spells, anxiety, difficulty sleeping and the difference between Postpartum Depression and baby blues is that the baby blues usually begin within the first two to three days after delivery and can last up to like two weeks. But postpartum depression is long lasting. It can it can even in extreme cases, turn into an extreme mood disorder which is called postpartum psychosis, and it usually occurs after childbirth. It can begin before the baby's born, but usually it occurs following childbirth. So one of the things that it really made clear in the articles that I read and that the doctors I spoke with

7:09 it's treatable, okay, and it is serious. Take it seriously. I think that's import Horton, okay, that anyone who interacts with the mom who says she has a history of it or she's currently going through it, take it seriously but reassure her that they're there are effective treatments and the sooner it's identified, the better the treatments are and the more effective that the treatments are. So I let's say, one of the things just to chime in a quick as a man from the male perspective. Yeah, when you encounter these women, I think we've said this reiterated this point several times that when you encounter a mom and she gives some reason why she's coming to the abortion center, sometimes those reason can they can be ridiculous to us and we don't understand.

8:01 We don't we don't connect with it right, especially as a man and dealing with postpartum depression like no man's ever dealt with postpartum depression. So we could be tempted to kind of just shrug it off. It's like, well, that's no reason to kill your baby, right. But I want to reinforce what you said, that we need to take it seriously. We need to, like we've always said, identify with their pain, even though it does not justify them killing their child. To them it's real. To them it's at least it's some sense a justification to be at the abortion center and we need to take it seriously. We need to address it now. Probably, as a man, I'm not even get as in depth as you would with the situation right right, but certainly if I've got people that I can get on the phone, if I've got a I'm out there on the sidewalk and I'm talking to a mom that's going in. She said, well, that with postpartum depression in the past and I don't want to deal with that this time. Still dealing with that or whatever. I'm probably going to call a female counselor over. Yeah, I'm probably going to not, probably definitely going to point her to the pregnancy center. Hey, don't go in there.

9:03 There's people in the pregnancy center. They can talk with that. I'll talk with you about that. And then again, if I have a medical professional so I can get on the phone, accounsel or something like that. Definitely want a connector with that, that person to yeah, yeah, and it is very important. We mentioned this in the article. I would recommend everyone read the artum article because we're not going to be able to get into the depth and the time we have. But one of the things the the experts say is if there is a history of postpartum depression, there is a greater likelihood and subsequent pregnancies that there will be postpartum depression. So this woman's sphere was real. Yeah, I think it might have even been her doctor that had sent her to the abortion center, which is so sad and so terrible because you you may or may not have postpartum depression, but it is serious as is debilitating, and it can truly it can be so severe that it can affect the mother's ability to bond to the child and the child could literally be in danger. It is very important that a professional be involved if that is in the in the woman's past. But so some of the symptoms, so so that that you know that this is different, more severe than just the crying, the tiredness, the sadness or irritability that often accompanies an exhausted woman following the birth of a baby. But with postpartum depression it's usually developing within the first few weeks after giving birth, may begin earlier during pregnancy.

10:31 There's depressed mood and severe mood swings, excessive crying, this is an important one. Difficulty bonding with the baby. Yeah, that's different from the baby blues. Baby Blues. There is sadness, there is irritability, but you love your baby. Yeah, and and the postpartum depressed woman may not feel that. She may just detach, be detached, yeah, from that baby. She may withdraw from family and friends, losing appetite, having insomnia or sleeping too much, overwhelming fatigue. All of those a company new childbirth. So you can see why. Sometimes it's hard to differentiate the two, which is why you got to get a professional in to diagnose hope. Hopelessness is another sign. Feelings of worthlessness, shame, panic attacks. This is another really important one. Thoughts of harming yourself or the baby. Yeah, again, that's not a normal baby be blue right response. Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide is a really serious thing that you should always pay attention to.

11:43 Yeah, and if it's left untreated, it can last for many months or longer, which would, of course, severely affect that the outcome for that child, because that's such an important time, yeah, of bonding, you know, early on. Yeah, absolutely so. So some of the risk factors. We wrote those down and what I noticed was that a lot of them are similar risk factors to what we see in the women we encounter at the abortion center. Yeah, just in general, financial problems, week support system, problems with relationships, all those things we see probably in every woman we meet. Yeah, added the abortion center some measure, for sure, a big one. Pregnancy was unplanned or unwanted. So you know that you're probably going to run into women with postpartum depression. Given these risk factors, which are so so prevalent in the women that come for an abortion.

12:52 Yeah, history of depression is particularly indicative of the chance of postpartum depression. Come enough. So here we are. The MOM's come in, she's ready to abort and you know that actually, if she's had it in her past, she's likely to have it again. And so what he's what do you say to her as she's as she's contemplating abortion? And I think one of the things that we often say to women whenever there's a possibility but not a certainty, that we can use that same discussion with a woman with postpartum depression.

13:41 Yeah, you may or may not have postpartum depression, but yeah, I mean it's similar to those situations where you encounter a woman at the abortion center that says, you know, I had whatever, whatever the disorder was. High blood pressure, so a common one during the last pregnancy. Clamps here exactly problem will have during pregnancy. So they might say they had complications with their last pregnancy and they don't want to take a risk this time. Like you mentioned earlier, their doctor sometimes has counseled them to come to the abortion center because they had passed issues. And so, yeah, it's important to remind them that not just because you have a certain thing in your past does not necessarily mean that thing is going to manifest currently. And then I think you have to either way, we have to confront with the real issue, is in the real issue is lack of a connection with the Lord, and you can do that very graciously. You want to bring Jesus into the equation, right, and the way I would do that if I was having this conversation. Well, you need to bring Jesus into the conversation, for sure, but you also need to talk about the humanity of the baby.

14:50 You need to dispel the myth, the lie that that baby is just a pregnancy, just a process that they're in. The baby's actually a human being. So, but bringing Jesus into the equation. If I was to encounter a woman in this particular scenario, I would first identify with her pain, because I'll ask the question often times in the course of the conversation, which so, what makes you feel like this is something you have to do, and I can imagine it playing itself out. I have not yet, just so you know, I have not yet encountered this. Yeah, I've talked to women that have had postpartum depression, but not coming to the abortion center in that particular scenario. Right. Yeah, but so I asked them what would you what makes you feel like abortion is an option for you and if they're sure to come out? Well, I deal strongly with postpartum depression.

15:37 My last two children I had a heavy postpartum depression and I just don't want to deal with that again. And so my first responsib be man that that's terrible. I hate that you deal with that. Yeah, and then I wur bring Jesus into the equation. Like, you know, God would say something like do you believe in God? Nine Times out of ten, yeah, I believe in God. Yeah, so you know God. God sees that pain, God knows the depression, the struggle, God knows all of that stuff and he cares about it. And so I bring Jesus into the equation. I maybe would bring some scripture. The Bible says cast your cares on the Lord, for he cares for you. Jesus cares about the stuff that you're going through. He wants you to cast those cares on him.

16:18 Yeah, and then I'm going to be talking about the humanity of the baby. Hmmm. Do you know that that that baby that you carry inside of your womb is precious to the Lord and even though you might be struggling even now mentally or had struggled in the past mentally, your children are a blessing. Yeah, maybe you carry right now, though she or she's very small, that baby is alive. Yeah, and then, of course I'll start talking about, you know, your baby's hearts already beating. Yeah, and then after that, I mean we're talking probably this is a five minute conversation or less. I'm pointing them right to the mobile ultrasound unit or right to a pregnancy center down the road, right to somewhere other than that place. They would you be willing just to go down the road to the pregnancy center?

16:59 It's fifteen minutes away. Here's the address, and they will have a nurse that will give you a free pregnancy test for ultrasound and they can talk with you about all this stuff. Yeah, and I like what you're doing is you're taking her focus off of her own fears and pain and putting it on another human being, yeah, which is which is that baby, and also, of course, on the help that God. And I liked what you said that, when you said that God knows about out your pain and your struggle, because so many of them describe themselves as feeling like they're all alone in this and then no one understands. And bring it in the fact that will God does. God understands. Yeah, and and he's there. So so those are all good and and and talking about again, of course, that there's a certainty if you take the child's life, the baby's dead and the baby may may or may not have yeah, well, are you named? Yeah, would that. Would certainly mention that. Yeah, you may have had this in the past, but that's no promise that you're going to have this right issue in the future. Right, but what is certain?

18:03 That's an uncertainty. You're not sure that you're going to have that. Yeah, but this is certain that if you go inside of that place, your baby's right right. Yeah, and then, if possible, if it was a doctor that sent her there, her doctor, you need to help find her another doctor. Yeah, it's kind of there are pro life doctors, in fact, and I spoke with Dr Matt because I am hardly an expert on this. I actually never experience postpartum depression myself with any of my pregnancies. But it is it is serious. Dr Matt said. It can be very serious and it can lead to severe depressive disorder. So we you.

18:45 You do need to take it seriously and it does need to be treated and addressed. But he said the answer is never killing the baby. Yeah, there is treatment and so reminding the woman also and knowing that yourself. I didn't know that. I didn't know what they could do for postpartum depression. I thought the woman just had to gut through it. But apparently there are drugs that you can even take during pregnancy that are safe during pregnancy, so he said. When I did talk with Dr Matt he he said that there are really some important things that sidewalk volunteer should know. First, that it can be treated safely and effectively. It is effective. There is good medication available. Yeah, but he also said, and I thought this was so important for us as sidewalk counselors in especially Love Life Ministry, who appoints mentors to these women. He said the woman will require a lot of support if she's struggling with postpartum depression. So he also made another point. I do want. I do want maybe you to to talk a little bit about.

19:55 Okay, the woman needs a lot of support. So what are we then to think and to provide and to think about, you know, as are follow up with this woman? Yeah, but he also said Post postport post partum depression, is a real issue. May Or may not occur with the with that pregnancy, but post abortion traumatic syndrome is also a real issue and can be devastating. And he said if they abhort, they they're adding a new level of another trauma that they are going to have to deal with. Yeah, which, of course, is is even worse because it's not only them, but now it's also as child. Yeah, so in terms of the extra support, yeah, well, in terms of the extra support, I mean I think with if we encounter a woman in this situation, assuring her that we have churches that will walk with their, stand with their I mean one of the things with any kind of depression is loneliness and people feeling alone, people feeling isolated, people feeling like there's no one that cares, and letting them know, reassuring them they're there are people that care.

21:04 Yeah, in this city, this is often times my statement. In this city they're literally hundreds of churches, with people in those churches that want to walk with you through this pregnancy? Yeah, can we connect you with one of them and just letting them know? And I think in these situations not. I think. I know in these situations we need to be very intentional about how the words that we use. We need to be very intentional about the tone of our voice, we need to be very intentional about really understanding this person's in mental anguish. This person is struggling mentally and though we mightn't connect with that, like, certainly again, I can't. Next with postpartum depression. And really, you know, I've been bummed before, but I've never been like clinically depressed. I don't know what all of that entails, you know, when you start talking about medications and all that stuff, like, I don't know about all that stuff. I don't know that world of medicine and I have some skepticism about that right, about psychiatric drugs and how good they are and all that stuff. But just because I have some skepticism about it doesn't mean I write it off completely. And again I try to stay in my lane. Right now. I don't know about all that stuff.

22:15 So I'm one of the things I'm not going to do is I'm not going to Poopoo that stuff. Hey, I'm going to ride away if I can get her away from that abortion center. And then with some follow up, let's say I've sent her to the pregnancy center down the road, I've gotten her contact info, I'll probably would hand it off to you or one of the female counselors at that point. Yeah, the follow up from that would be connecting her with a medical professional, or at least following up and saying, Hey, did the pregnancy center that they help get you connected with a medical professional, because quite likely that that could happen if she shared with them, and she may not have shared with them. So it might be on you to connect her with the medical professional. Yeah, and then again following up with can we connect you with a mentor, because to me that may even go further than connecting her with a doctor or some kind of counselor something like that. The fact that there are people in this thing with her who could be then invite her to church. I mean, listen, God can break through in those situation and alleviate any kind of depression, fear of depression, and I think that's what we're talking about really. We're not talking about maybe dealing with the actual depression or encounter woman at the abortion center.

23:25 We're talking about dealing with the fear that that could happen exactly. Although you know, down the road, we I. If Mentor or a counselor is following a woman through the birth of their child, you may encounter someone who's actually then in depression. But right now this situation that arose was just the fear. Yeah, of what I think for me, like just going through this. I breezed through this article when you sent it over, but I'm learning something like to me this pretty profound, which is that not? I mean a new postpartum depression was a real thing. Yeah, but didn't really understand, like, gosh, it's more than just their bum because they don't have a baby anymore. Else kind of what my thinking was, like they're missing the fact that they're pregnant or whatever. Yeah, this is more than what you, I guess, what they call the baby blues. And so to me this is enlightening at least knowing that this is a this is a reality for yeah, and it and what what went through my mind with I think like you said, I think the mentorship is critical, very critical for this woman. She's going to need a lot of support. Is What Dr Matt said and what the art of what the articles I read said. There for the Church or whoever is a pointing a mentor, if your city does that, and I hope that more and more cities will be doing that, a mentor from a with the backing of a church to follow this woman.

24:45 That mentor needs to know this is going to be intense, because there are some people who are willing to take that on as a mentor. Yeah, there are different levels of what people are willing to give as a mentor and in in this case this is going to be someone that is it's going to be intense, and so it needs to be a mentor who is willing to be involved in the ideal one would probably be someone who has been through it herself. But we wrote out a list of things that we should do as as sidewalk counselors, and I think those are important. They're kind of the the take home list. All right, but don't minimize the issue is is the first thing, which we've said, a doctor needs to know she's pregnant and worried about postpartum depression? If so, you need to find that out.

25:40 Yeah, recommend a second opinion. If a doctor has referred her to the abortion center. Yeah, then for sure she definitely doesn't need to go back to that. You need to go find not only a second opinion, you need a new doctor. Yeah, talking about that treatment is available. Oftentimes just knowing that will help them. Yeah, they may not. They may not have known that speaking with a high risk doctor, having that available, reminding her it's temporary. I don't know if we mentioned that so far, but that's really important and this is a good counseling technique for anyone we encounter at the abortion center. They're usually in a situation that's temporary. Yeah, yeah, a good statement is don't employ a permanent solution for a temporary theiry issue. Yeah, exact portion is a permanent yeah. Yeah, it's permanent in the sense that it permanently ends the life of a baby. Yeah, and I didn't write this one down in the article, but it occurred to me to be on the lookout of women who have an unusual level of detachment from the baby growing in them, and I have seen that. I've never heard it labeled as postpartum depression before. Yeah, but I had one woman, I think we spoke about her in the past some other podcast, that kept saying she agreed with everything I said but kept saying, I just don't want this baby. Yeah, I don't love this baby, I don't want this baby. Had I known more about postpartum depression, that statement might have been a tipoff to me. Is there something more than just sin?

27:10 Yeah, is there something going on that is chemic cold, which I assume that it has to do the whole amount of moments right, issues and things like that. One of the things that comes to mind for me is that we do often times see, and so I said, I don't know that I've ever encountered that situation, but I quite possibly didn't just didn't know about it, because oftentimes, but we do see is somebody come to the abortion center who just had a baby, right they when we see a lot women come in with a baby carrier, not just a car seat but a baby carrier in the backs, that they they have a newborn in the car and just got pregnant again. Yeah, and it could be. I mean I think more than anything else, it's like, well, we don't want to have another baby right now because financially, your relation or whatever, we don't want to do this. But it could be that postpartum depression thing. Yep, there's dealing with that from that last pregnancy. Yeah, being able to speak to that acknowledge that, I think, could be helpful. or a flat affect. I've seen that the really flat affect as the women are looking at their baby on the ultrasound. That's not normal. That is not normal and it didn't occur to me that that could be another tipoff of is there some sort of a depression, a postpartum depression, going on? The last point is just keep pointing her to focus on God, and we added it some verses at the end of this article to help. But never neglect that just because it's serious, just because it's real. This is a real medical condition that does need to be addressed, but that doesn't mean you neglect.

28:44 Yeah, helping them to put their focus on God and right minding them to really trust him and turn their lives over to him. So I think that's that's basically what what what we discovered. I you know, we re these through this, but if anyone has further questions. Of course feel free to contact us and and do some research on your own. It's I think it's more important than I had realized the more that I researched it. Yeah, and I would say it's good to have in your phone. This is what I do a lot of times with different topics and things like that. I'll look for articles and then on my phone I'll save in the notes section a link to that article, and that's something you could actually you could text it over to somebody if you're I mean to me. I can think in my scenario, if I'm dealing with a dad on the sidewalk, he says, well, she's in there because he's dealing with this was part of them depression and just really doesn't want to have another baby and deal with this again.

29:42 A man, can I shoot you of an article just for years to check out? I'm going to encourage him along those lines. Yeah, I do think, though, of course. You know I've said we need to be careful with our tone and we need to be careful with our language. You don't want to come across as like judge or condemning, but we do need to be forthright, we do need to set out the reality like you understand it. You're going to kill your baby if you get through with an abortion. I don't think we dance around that. I think we tell the truth. Yeah, we do it graciously, as graciously as possible, but yeah, for me to take away is just acknowledging that this is a thing, that this is an issue. So and encourage you guys just to look for articles that you can have maybe, like I do, save it in your phone. Yeah, check out this article. Sidewalks for lifecom is where we put these articles out. Maybe at some point the future will mesh the two websites, the website for the podcast specifically in the website that we have the articles on together, but for now you can go find the article sidewalks for lifecom. That's our training and equipping website as well. So just some sidewalk training and stuff that are there. Beyond the articles, we have other things, videos and stuff, and then, of course, the podcast website, Gospel centered prolifecom to check out our podcasts and be able to search for keywords and things like that for subjects that we've covered in the past. We do appreciate you guys listening and if you need to reach out to me, you can reach me Daniel at Love Life Dot Org. You reach her Vicky at Love Life Dot Org. We'd love to hear from you, but until next time, God bless God, bless Y'all our love for love. Give me

31:19 our love for gratitude. I know it will cost me my life. Nothing's too precious in some you