The bill can be found here

While I may not have a problem with the education of women in regards to postpartum depression and I believe that funding hospitals and health care facilities to ease the transition into motherhood is a great idea, the mandatory screening and “essential services” provided to new mothers is disconcerting to me. What has me worried is the lack of clear statement as to what these services are, not to mention that per their stats 80% of women have a mild form of depression or baby blues as they call it. Reading up on this though has me believing that there is a possibility that it is just a pharmaceutical campaign and that worries me.

So,lets say i have been diagnosed, what am I putting into my body? What is being passed on to my child? What are the long-term effects that this is going to have on my child and myself? When I can be given scientific proof that what I am taking is not going to cause damage down the road then I might consider it but even then I want the right to choose. Right now I am reading papers both for and against pharmaceuticals in general and I hear far to often of the harmful side effects of some of these drugs. I see far too often the change in my friends who are on behavior altering drugs. I don’t want that to be me and I don’t want to expose my children to that. All of those in favor of using chemicals to solve every problem go ahead, I’ll stay here and wait to see what happens. Until the gains outweigh the risks though I’m staying out of it and I don’t want that right taken away from me.

Now, I understand that many women go through a period of depression caused by unusual hormone levels during pregnancy and even a short time after but the treatment and care of the mother should remain in the hands of her family. I trust my family and friends to know if I might be a danger to myself or to my child just as I trust myself to be thoroughly educated and take preventative measures against this.

Just a few weeks before I heard of this I had a conversation with a mother diagnosed with postpartum depression. After only two days on the drug prescribed to her she stopped taking it because the drugged haze that she existed in made it impossible to take even basic care of her child. Being unable to bring herself to care about the well being of her child as it cried scared her straight off. I might add that her child, now seven, is a fun and bright kid who has not suffered in the least from having a mother who could get off the couch.

This does not need to be passed into law just promote the education of it and mothers will take action as they deem best. Just following basic evolution theory, if caring for their children was something mothers had to be forced or drugged into then the human race would have died off long ago. So but out politicians and leave us the right to make such decisions for ourselves. On this bill I am split it has moments where I am in favor of it but in all I can’t help but feel that it may bite me in the ass if it is passed.

If there is information that you think I might be interested in let me know.