Misdiagnosis?
24 May 2006, 10:58
The first three months were (relatively) easy – sure I had some not so good days, but Scout would generally sleep whenever, wherever and for fairly long stretches during the day. And she self-settled at night. We’d put her in the cradle at 8pm, and if she wasn’t that tired, she’d look around calmly as you left the room and when you returned she’d be asleep. For the next 7-9 hours. We congratulated ourselves on our heavenly baby.
When 3 months hit, our routine hadn’t changed, but Scout decided it was rather too tedious to sleep any longer than 45 minutes during the day, and she’d actually prefer not to sleep even that long, thanks very much, Mum. This totally screwed up any semblance of a routine, and I’d never know if she was hungry, tired or both. I think my milk started going down because of the stress of it all.
And at night, as we put her in the cradle, she’d smile or blow raspberries at us, we’d leave the room and 5 minutes later the howling began. On a good evening it would take 5-10 minutes to settle her, on a bad one, about an hour and a half. She still sleeps for fairly long stretches (except for the occasional hell night, when she wakes every 2 hours for resettling) but getting her to that state is a nightmare.
Most of the literature/experts tell you to “resettle” if your baby sleeps under an hour during the day. Well, I tried that and endured her screams, to no avail. The thing that pisses me off is that sometimes she wakes up from her 45 minute kip with a big smile on face, and after 25 minutes of subsequent unsuccessful “resettling” I have a very unhappy, vexed baby indeed. I’d rather take the catnapping happy baby, thanks. It’s enough to make anyone go nuts.
Well, perhaps not nuts, but after 4 days in a row of me crying hysterically through the days because she wouldn’t sleep or resettle and I castigated myself for being a “failed mum” (oh purlease, I hear you say) I went to see the GP who diagnosed mild postnatal depression.
Now I have absolutely no problem admitting to anyone that I have PND, except I don’t believe that I do. The GP, a supposed “mental health expert” (pah! and baloney!) handed me a questionnaire with questions such as “how often do you feel worthless”, “how often do you cry or feel like crying” etc. etc. Now, to many of these questions, I answered “some of the time” and I achieved a certain numerical score for answering as such. At the end of the questionnaire, she tallied my score and said I had mild PND. At no stage, did she ask if any of these responses were situational, which they are. I feel like crying whenever she cries, I feel worthless whenever she cries and I can’t settle her or help her sleep. When she’s feeding, playing or anytime when I’m not settling her, I’m 100% fine. Now, to me, that sounds like a sleep-deprived Mum who needs a sleep school or clinic to learn coping and settling techniques, rather than a referral to a psychologist and anti-depressants.
That’s right, she put me on anti-depressants for a “mild” case of PND. She didn’t even tell me what they were as she was prescribing them. I asked her (as I suspected the cunning truth) and she said they’d “help me sleep”. I then asked her if they were sleeping tablets, and she said, “yes, they’ll help you sleep”. I then asked if they were anti-depressants and she said “Yes”. AAAAAAAAAGH.
I went to the chemist, got the ADs and the pharmacist said to take one the first night, two the second night and three the third night, that they’d make me feel a bit drowsy at first but that I’d get used to them. I retorted “I don’t want to get used to them”. I decided after careful consideration, that the GP could shove her ADs up her crack. She didn’t even try to get to the bottom of what was going on at home. Talk about throwing drugs at the problem… I’ll take the psychologist, thanks very much, because any new mum could, in my opinion, do with an impartial shoulder to whinge and bemoan on, but I have no intention on taking the ADs until things get far, far worse. Particularly because I’m breastfeeding.
Oh, GP says “they’re safe if you’re breastfeeding” but that’s total BULLSHIT FANNYDUST!!! EVERYTHING goes through to your breastmilk, and I don’t care if the amount is miniscule, I don’t want Scout sucking down Prothiaden. NO THANKS.
I’m looking into some sleep schools/clinics and hopefully they won’t tell me to take a running jump simply because Scout still sleeps a fair chunk of the night. It’s the days that are exhausting me, and I still get a sinking feeling in my gut whenever I hear her cries start up.
This too, will pass, this too, will pass…
Permanent Link | - Hi!
I’ve followed your blog for a while now but have never posted a comment before. I thought I would today because I have a friend who is in exactly the same situation. Bub is 8 weeks and sleeps a good chunk of the night but just wont settle during the day. Just today she went to ‘sleep classes’ and is feeling much better about the whole stuation. Ganbatte!
— hotaru May 24, 07:27 PM # - Oh Kinki! I really feel for you. My kids were exactly the same with the 45-minute napping, and with my son, I drove myself into hysterics trying to resettle him. With my daughter we virtually threw the daytime ‘routine’ out the window and we were both a lot happier. I think I could have answered ‘yes’ to most of those PND question on a situational basis too, especially with my first baby. I reckon a lot of first-time mums could be misdiagnosed as mildly PND at some time during those first harrowing months. It’s a damn hard slog. Hang in there. She’ll be starting school before you know it :)
— Deb Harrison May 24, 07:37 PM # - Having been/being through the hell that is PND (long story, read my baby blog http://kotanishi.blogspot.com/ from about June 2005) everyone’s experience of that black dog is completely different. The medication shouldn’t be just to help you sleep, but to help you cope (it is a tool not a solution).
Anyhoo, my spoffster did exactly the same with the 45 minutes sleep until we started sleeping him on his tummy on the advice of the visiting midwife (one of the advantages of PND,lots and lots of home visits by the MCHN) – instant resolution (and I mean instant) as long as you can deal with the SIDS fear…but a good monitor helped that (and the PND).
— Sharon May 24, 09:30 PM # - oh and I meant to add – the Edinburgh Scale (the test you did for PND) isn’t meant to be a rating of whether you have mild/moderate/severe PND, it is supposed to be more of an indicator whether you do or do not have PND i.e. a score above 12 indicates the existence of PND, not the severity.
We did a sleep clinic as well run by our Council, and it was great just to figure out what those sleep signs were and how to cope. Very useful. So was this video made by another council (your MCHN or library might have it as well) http://www.banyule.vic.gov.au/Content.aspx?topicID=974
“Time to Sleep”
— Sharon May 24, 09:39 PM # - And there was me having a dig when you last posted about Scout’s catnapping issues, how crappy do I feel now! So apologies and sorry to hear that the sleep thing is proving a tough nut to crack. Our little ‘un seems to have napped reasonably regularly since being born, though some days the naps are longer than others (like a 3 hour log impression today actually), so not much I can add to the comments above except hang in there…:)
— bogue May 24, 11:04 PM # - oh kinki… sounds like little scout is going through some tough sleeping schedule changes :( is it possible that you could change up your daily schedule significantly in order to compensate? i don’t know about these things but i’m learning from all of you first-time parents!
— gleek May 25, 02:50 AM # - I wouldn’t take the diagnosis too personally. It just means that you are feeling upset after having a baby – which is pretty normal. The fact that you have recognised it early and decided to do something about it means that it isn’t too late. Lots of support is required but don’t get down on yourself. Of course you will feel bad when your bub is a bit irritable. Catch it early enough, get support and be proactive and you’ll be right.
— Hammy May 25, 11:30 AM # - here we go again…the stigma of depression and medication..personally i suffered from severe anti-social depression in 97-98 and was virtually inoperable and was on medication for that period and it helped immensely…i have seen many friends far more talented than myself who succumbed to to the morass of depression and suicide unguided…it’s a tragic thing all round and some people do need to talk combined or not with medication, for a long or brief time, but to malign people who genuinely suffer these pains is disgusting… the main reason I moved on from a brief use of anti-depressants is I found i could not relax or unwind with a beer or wine anymore due to the cross-effect…am back to normal, praise God (whatever the popular standard is) and wake up each day happy but to amplify prejudice is not on
— mishima Jun 20, 11:51 PM #
