Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Fresno County Authorities Seek Help Locating Missing Woman and Infant

4 hours ago

Maddy Institute Fundraiser to Highlight Central Valley’s Impact at State Capitol

4 hours ago

No Aid Supplies Left and Staff Are Starving in Gaza, Says Norwegian Refugee Council

5 hours ago

US Targets Houthis With Fresh Sanctions Action

5 hours ago

Oil Prices Fall as Tariff Deadline Looms

5 hours ago

US Justice Dept. Asks Epstein Associate Maxwell to Speak to Prosecutors

5 hours ago

Trump’s Golden Dome Looks for Alternatives to Musk’s SpaceX

5 hours ago

Masked Raids and Impersonators Driving Force Behind Terror Campaign Across Nation

6 hours ago

Fresno Unified’s Free Immunization Clinics for Students Start in August

7 hours ago

Americans’ Confidence in Institutions Remains Low. Divides by Party Widen

7 hours ago
Postpartum Mental Illness: The Crisis No Expectant Mother Expects
gvw_calmatters
By CalMatters
Published 6 years ago on
August 2, 2019

Share

Eva Schwartz didn’t have a history of mental illness. There were never any indicators that the birth of her first child would spark a years-long struggle that would threaten her marriage and her life.


Barbara Harvey
CALmatters

Schwartz was 29 in 2015, with a stable home life in Sacramento, as she awaited the arrival of her firstborn son, Isaac. She felt prepared. She had taken all the classes, followed all the mommy pages on Facebook. She was going to have a natural birth, she said, and exclusively breastfeed once Isaac was born.
Those plans started to go awry during labor, when doctors decided she needed an unscheduled caesarean section. Then her breast milk didn’t come in. Schwartz panicked, fearing Isaac would somehow be “damaged” if he wasn’t exclusively breastfed, or that she wouldn’t be able to bond with him.
As days turned to weeks, her psychological health went into a tailspin. Her ability to mother her child became a fixation. At night, her husband said, he would awaken to her crying in bed, detailing scenarios in which she would kill herself and he would remarry before Isaac was old enough to “know that (she) existed.” Eventually, 10 days after giving birth, she began raving to a neighbor who told her husband to take her to the emergency room, where her mania spiked.
Forcibly sedated, Schwartz was taken to Heritage Oaks Hospital on a 51-50 hold, where she was diagnosed with postpartum psychosis, a condition which can begin in the first few days after childbirth, even in women with no history of mental illness.
“There’s all sorts of prenatal classes that they do to help you prepare for a new baby,” Schwartz said. “But no one warned me that mental illness can hit.”

Mental Health Side of the Picture

The health of expectant mothers has been an urgent concern, nationally and in California, as studies have shown maternal mortality rates falling worldwide, yet steadily increasing in the United States. Health initiatives here have focused on reducing complications of pregnancy and childbirth, and California’s progress, with a few exceptions, has been held up as a national model.
But the mental health side of the picture, which can be just as lethal, has received less attention, say lawmakers and public health experts.
A recent report by researchers at UC Merced and Michigan State University linked nearly one in five postpartum deaths among California women to drug abuse or suicide — psychological crises. The death toll was highest, the study found, among socioeconomically disadvantaged women and white women, but it added that data is generally scant on mental health-related deaths of new mothers.
Sidra Goldman-Mellor, a psychiatric epidemiologist at UC Merced who is one of the study’s authors, said official maternal mortality rates in the U.S. only focus on causes of death immediately linked to the pregnancy or childbirth — medical complications such as hemorrhages or preeclampsia, for example.
“They’re not even counting deaths that are due to other problems,” Goldman-Mellor said.
Assemblywoman Sabrina Cervantes agrees that postpartum mental health has been neglected as an issue. “We celebrate the birth of children, but the well-being of the mother who gives birth often gets forgotten,” she said.

Longer-Term Access to Care Is Key

The Riverside Democrat is working to establish a pilot program to provide greater mental health services to new mothers, one among several new efforts to address that aspect of postpartum care. Her Assembly Bill 798 would create a privately funded pilot program that would provide mental health screenings, psychiatry, teleconsultations and mentoring services aimed at detecting and treating postpartum mothers for up to one year after delivery.

Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a budget bill temporarily expanding access to Medi-Cal maternal mental health services from two months to one full year after giving birth, an $8.6 million initiative funded by revenue from the tobacco tax passed by voters in 2016.
Already in effect as of this month is Assemblyman Brian Maienschein’s Assembly Bill 2193, which requires health insurers to develop a maternal mental health program and requires prenatal or postpartum providers to ensure that new mothers are offered screening for maternal mental health conditions.
Maienschein has also put forth Assembly Bill 845, which will be taken up on the Senate floor when the Legislature is back in session in August. That bill would require the California medical board to consider including a course in maternal mental health among its continuing education requirements for providers.
Meanwhile, last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a budget bill temporarily expanding access to Medi-Cal maternal mental health services from two months to one full year after giving birth, an $8.6 million initiative funded by revenue from the tobacco tax passed by voters in 2016. The experimental expansion, slated to start next year, will sunset at the end of 2021 unless state lawmakers vote to keep it.
That longer-term access to care is key, said Goldman-Mellor, particularly in rural areas with fewer providers and among mothers who have had substance abuse issues. Her study found that mental health risks were particularly high among women whose deliveries were paid for by Medicaid rather than private insurance. The study also found that most mental health-related deaths among new mothers took place late in the postpartum period, often after the 60-day cutoff for postpartum care under Medicaid (or Medi-Cal, as the low income health insurance program is known in California).

Not the First Appearance of Maternal Mental Health

“If a woman (on Medicaid) was previously accessing treatment for substance abuse or mental health, her coverage for that treatment could end a couple months after the birth of her child,” said Goldman-Mellor. “That could place her at risk for relapsing, or just not getting the treatment she needs later in the postpartum period.”
This is not the first appearance of maternal mental health on California’s policy agenda. In 2010, former Democratic Assemblyman Pedro Nava of Santa Barbara authored a resolution declaring the month of May to be Perinatal Depression Awareness Month in the state. That led to the creation of the California Maternal Mental Health Collaborative, an independent nonprofit organization later tasked with assessing the status of maternal mental healthcare in California. The collaborative later became 2020Mom, an advocacy group that promotes research and legislation on the issue.
But as female representation in the Legislature has rebounded to its 30.8% high point, and as a governor with four young children has taken office, the issue of maternal health, particularly among low income women, has gathered momentum. Cervantes, a 31-year-old, second-term lawmaker, for example, comes out of Riverside County, where more than half of births are paid for by Medi-Cal.
As many as “one in five new or expectant mothers will experience a mental health disorder during pregnancy or the first year following childbirth, including depression, anxiety, and postpartum psychosis,” Cervantes notes in her bill, which has passed the Assembly and is now parked in the Senate Appropriations Committee while she and other backers try to figure out funding. Because socioeconomic factors and stigma can also prevent women from seeking treatment, the bill includes an opt-in pilot program for counties, including Riverside, to offer remote mental health teleconsultations to new mothers.

‘My Crying Really Bothered Them, They Threatened to Kill Me’

Testifying earlier this year in favor of Cervantes’ bill, Schwartz said she would like to see programs specifically for women with postpartum depression, separate from existing mental health services that don’t always take women’s unique circumstances into account. At Heritage Oaks, she said, she was placed with drug addicts and wasn’t allowed to see her newborn, which only compounded her trauma.
“My crying really bothered them, so they threatened to kill me,” she said of her roommates, and the hospital had to move her to a new room. In the United Kingdom, she noted, new mothers are treated in Mother and Baby Units specifically designed to keep a woman with her infant while she seeks treatment during a crucial point in a child’s development.
Over the following year, she said, she was in and out of the hospital as doctors experimented with different types of medications and treatments. At her low point, during a manic episode that started when she tried to stop taking her medication, her husband Brent filed for divorce. “I thought I couldn’t take it anymore,” he said.
Eventually, she resumed her medication, found a sustainable treatment plan and reconciled with her husband, she said, but her recovery has been a long process. She counts herself lucky that she had the health insurance and access to care that allowed her to reclaim her life.
“I didn’t get a divorce. Most women do. I didn’t end up on the street. And I didn’t, as people I met in the mental hospital did, end up on methamphetamines or heroin,” Schwartz said. “I had health care. The fact that these women don’t is absolutely terrifying. They need it. It’s the basics of everything else. I didn’t lose my mind, because of that.”
CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
[activecampaign form=19]

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

Trump Releases Martin Luther King Assassination Files

DON'T MISS

Fresno County DUI Crash Kills Elderly Driver in Parked Car, Suspect Booked for Manslaughter

DON'T MISS

US Judge Sentences Ex-Police Officer to 33 Months for Violating Civil Rights of Breonna Taylor

DON'T MISS

WHO Says Israeli Military Attacked Staff Residence in Gaza

DON'T MISS

Iranian Foreign Minister Says Iran Cannot Give up on Nuclear Enrichment

DON'T MISS

RIP, Don Larson, 91: A Community Giant Who Brought Truth to Fresno Politics

DON'T MISS

Madera Teen Arrested for DUI After Passenger Killed in Crash, CHP Says

DON'T MISS

UK, France and 23 Other Nations Condemn Israel Over ‘Inhumane Killing’ of Civilians

DON'T MISS

Fresno Costco Project Killed by Judges Decision

DON'T MISS

Don See, Navy Veteran and Beloved Family Man, Dies at 91

UP NEXT

I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.

UP NEXT

California Is Finally Adopting Phonics, Fulfilling a Grandmother’s Dream

UP NEXT

New CA Budget Papers Over $20 Billion Deficit, Ignores Day of Reckoning

UP NEXT

Trump Is Winning the Race to the Bottom

UP NEXT

Why California Ag Is at Odds Over Converting Land to Solar Farms

UP NEXT

Federal Immigration Crackdown Threatens California’s Historic Housing Reforms

UP NEXT

Governors Should Be the Face of the Democratic Party

UP NEXT

MAGA Is Tearing Itself Apart Over Jeffrey Epstein

UP NEXT

Valadao, Other California GOP Members of Congress Might Regret Backing Trump’s Megabill

UP NEXT

Diplomacy or Submission? The Zionist Grip on US Political Power and Trump’s Uneasy Alliance With Netanyahu

Farming Giant Boswell Silent as It Plans to Sink Tulare Lake Bed Another 10 feet

1 hour ago

Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath’s Bat-Biting Frontman, Dies Aged 76, BBC Reports

1 hour ago

NPR’s Top Editor Edith Chapin to Step Down

2 hours ago

Trump Says US, Philippines ‘Very Close’ to Finalizing Trade Deal

2 hours ago

US to Mediate Israel-Syria Meeting on Thursday, Axios Reports

2 hours ago

Students Protest in Bangladesh After Air Force Jet Crash Kills 31, Mostly Children

3 hours ago

Trump Blames Obama for What He Calls 2016 Attempt to Tie Him to Russia

3 hours ago

Less Than 400 EV Charging Ports Built Under $7.5 Billion US Infrastructure Program

3 hours ago

California Voters Say State Is Off Course. Housing Emerges as Top Concern

3 hours ago

What’s Fresno County Worth? Property Tax Roll Grows by Billions of Dollars

3 hours ago

Obama Reiterates Conclusion of Attempted Russian Interference in 2016 Election

WASHINGTON – The office of U.S. Democratic former President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that a document issued last week by the Offic...

1 minute ago

Former U.S. President Barack Obama attends the 60th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (Reuters File)
1 minute ago

Obama Reiterates Conclusion of Attempted Russian Interference in 2016 Election

54 minutes ago

What Do Fresno Families Pay in Taxes? Study Says 11th Lowest Rate in Nation

Paramount Global logo is seen in this illustration taken December 17, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
1 hour ago

Trump Says Received $16 Million Payment After Paramount Lawsuit Settlement

1 hour ago

Farming Giant Boswell Silent as It Plans to Sink Tulare Lake Bed Another 10 feet

Commonwealth Games - Closing Ceremony - Alexander Stadium, Birmingham, Britain - August 8, 2022 Ozzy Osbourne performs during the closing ceremony REUTERS/Hannah Mckay/File Photo
1 hour ago

Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath’s Bat-Biting Frontman, Dies Aged 76, BBC Reports

The logo of the National Public Radio is pictured on the day National Public Radio and three Colorado public radio stations sued the Trump administration over the president's executive order to cut federal funding for public broadcasting, at its West office in Culver City, California, U.S., May 27, 2025. (Reuters File)
2 hours ago

NPR’s Top Editor Edith Chapin to Step Down

President Donald Trump, flanked by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, meets with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 22, 2025. (Reuters/Kent Nishimura)
2 hours ago

Trump Says US, Philippines ‘Very Close’ to Finalizing Trade Deal

A member of the Internal Security Forces stands watch at a checkpoint in the village of Al-Mazra'a, after days of violence in the Sweida province sparked by clashes between Bedouin fighters and Druze factions, in Sweida province, Syria, July 21, 2025. (Reuters/Khalil Ashawi)
2 hours ago

US to Mediate Israel-Syria Meeting on Thursday, Axios Reports

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend