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America's healthcare "system" profoundly failing new moms...
She Wanted To Be The Perfect Mom, Then Landed In A Psychiatric UnitThere's plenty of research, dating back to the 1940s, on the ideal protocols for inpatient treatment of postpartum mental illnesses. The gold standard is to admit the mother and the baby into the hospital together, on a specialized mother-baby unit, where they're treated as a pair.
Part of the mom's therapy in these units is getting guidance on how to read the baby's cues and how to meet the baby's needs — as well as her own. At night, the baby sleeps in a supervised nursery, so the mom can get uninterrupted sleep.
In the United Kingdom, there are 21 of these mother-baby psychiatric units. In France, there are 15. They exist in Belgium and New Zealand and one in India.
But in the U.S., there are zero.
Part of the mom's therapy in these units is getting guidance on how to read the baby's cues and how to meet the baby's needs — as well as her own. At night, the baby sleeps in a supervised nursery, so the mom can get uninterrupted sleep.
In the United Kingdom, there are 21 of these mother-baby psychiatric units. In France, there are 15. They exist in Belgium and New Zealand and one in India.
But in the U.S., there are zero.
Because of course there's fucking zero. They'd seriously cut into profits for insurance companies, hospitals, and the rest of the greedy parasites running our healthcare "system".
And because our whole fucking culture is so broken, degraded and generally fucked up that I can actually understand that reasoning-- The number of young, especially first-time, moms who have little to no support system, no experience with babies, and no real education on infant and child development is probably among the world's highest. So if such services were available, and people knew about it, the demand -both appropriate and wishfully-thinking- might well be terrifyingly high.
But hey, as long as the fetus is carried to term, we can call ourselves "pro-life", right?
sadly,
Bright
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