You Are Not Alone With Postpartum Depression

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“I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too and this is Stuff You Should Know.”

The kind of bummer edition we're hoping to shine a light on something to help people out. That's right, you know how we do these playlists once a quarter now. Which by the way, I hope people are enjoying those sort of collecting things in groups and releasing them once a quarter in groups of 10 or 12. I thought it was kind of a fun idea and we've been enjoying it.

But maybe one day something we can buck it is just really sad joke free episodes that we feel like they're almost like a public service announcement. We just call them bummer episodes you need to hear. Right, I think that's a great title. Let's do that.

Yeah, I mean this would definitely be one of them because we're talking about postpartum depression and sort of the the general bucket of post and even prenatal and during natal troubles that women go through because they're you know several sub categories that they kind of place under postpartum depression.

But it is a real serious thing that affects, you know, I saw 10 to 15 percent.

“I think Dave helped us with this and he said one and eight, which is about 12 percent.”

Yeah. Of women experience this and it's one of those things that is not talked about enough to where it seems like the numbers could be higher because people are still ashamed to admit this kind of thing happens. Yeah, there is a definite stigma on this to varying degrees depending on your culture or ethnic group. Yeah.

But basically across the board you're going to find a stigma against a new mother who can't get it together for her baby.

That's kind of like what people sometimes look at it as and if you were basically being looked at like that.

And you're already down on yourself because you're not performing perfectly to your own standards or whatever. That heaped on top of it you're you're probably not going to be like everybody. I need help. And just keep trying to go and that is the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do with any of what are called maternal mental health issues. There's a whole umbrella permits not just postpartum depression or perinatal depression.

There's a bunch of other ones we'll talk about a little bit too. But all of them add up to you got to ask for help. You also have to be on the lookout for needing to offer help to the new mother too if you're the father. If you're the father or a family member or a friend or something. Yeah, it's it's a brutal situation where I mean giving birth is a.

You know it can be a very wonderful joy thing but no matter how you slice it it's it's a very.

“Big sort of and traumatic that and always necessarily I think mean something awful but just such a big life event that then you're then expected like and now it's supposed to be the best thing ever.”

And you're going to be the happiest you've ever been immediately despite these huge hormonal swings. Right. And you're going to be a perfect mind you're going to be such a great mom you're going to be a perfect mom. It's just it's just so much pressure and so yeah, this is a bit of a PSA for sure for sure. And you hit you hit something on the nose. Um, the being perfect immediately. I mean being perfect is a too high expectation anyway nobody's perfect but the idea that you're just supposed to immediately click with your kid and just now you're a perfect mom or a great mom.

It's like that is not how it plays out very often I would guess most of the time it's a process exactly.

So like I said postpartum depression or parry needle. I'm just going to call it postpartum. I basically don't know anybody who's ever called it parry needle depression.

Yeah. So we're just going to call it postpartum depression with the caveat that it doesn't just happen after birth that can happen while during the pregnancy as well right. Yeah, and up to a year following birth as well for sure. So again, this falls under the umbrella term of maternal mental health. There's also some others postpartum anxiety postpartum obsessive compulsive disorder. We'll talk about those a little bit later. But when you put all of these things together, you get a really bleak picture of mothers in the United States.

Whereas the rest of the world is doing better and better with maternal mental health. The U.S. keeps getting worse and worse.

And between 2016 and 2023, new moms reported nearly 65% increase of fair to poor mental health. It is, oh man, it is the leading cause of death among new mothers now in the United States with suicide and drug overdose accounting for 22% of all postpartum maternal deaths in the United States.

“So crazy, you know, maternal death rates. You usually look at it as like, you know, something tragic happened in the birth like physically or biologically.”

Right. And in the United States, the leading cause of death is suicide and drug overdoses. Yeah, I mean, and this is the highest in the developed world by far. And that increases the highest in the developed world, right? So it's a crisis in the United States. It's a crisis worldwide, but in the United States, it's like a five alarm fire apparently. Yeah.

I'd be really interested to know what the problem is, what's behind those figures are underneath those figures.

Same. You think it's the United States transition toward the becoming the society from a handmade scale? Yeah. I have some to do with it. So one of the other things about the postpartum depression too that's really problematic is in you kind of touched on this early on. I think something like half of cases just go undiagnosed in part because even doctors sometimes are like,

'cause you'll be fine, just get over, just get back in there. You know, give it the old college try and families too, and I think that self-inflicted stigma too that new mothers have. Yeah, and you know, it's one of the reasons is because, and you know, they have screening tools now. There's one called the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale to determine like when that line is crossed because the baby blues or the postpartum blues or something that happens. A lot, like, maybe even most pregnancies you end up for, you know, up to like a week or two, having these hormonal swings where there's like overlapping symptoms with what ends up being PPD.

“So that's why a lot of reason it becomes undiagnosis because people think like, 'Well, this is just the baby blues I'm suffering from some sadness and crying, and because, and feeling overwhelmed certainly, because this is maybe my first time,”

although I should point out that postpartum is not limited to first birth at all.

Right. It can happen with any, like the third birth, the third kid, fourth kid, whatever. But the overlap is so great that a lot of times I think people are like, 'Well, little pass, little pass, it's just the baby blues'. But if it goes on for more than a week or two, you're probably in PPD territory. Yeah, it's not that the postpartum depression is a, like, a different thing than the baby blues.

It's the severity of the symptoms, the same symptoms, and the duration of those same symptoms that really differentiate it and make it something that, like, you need help for, like, you need to get professional help. It's not just going to go away on its own, or if it does, it's going to, you're going to grind through years of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Because we didn't say this yet, it's very highly treatable. Yeah, for sure. That's the good news, and we'll get to that. But, you know, some of those symptoms we should list are loss of appetite, difficulty sleeping, feeling worthlessness, or maybe even guilt or shame. Anxiety, panic, your ability, anger, big time mood swings, difficulty with bonding with your baby.

Mm-hmm. And again, these are, these can be the baby blues, or if they're super severe and go on long enough, like you said, it develops into PPD. And it's the kind of thing that can also start several weeks to a month later.

So, you got to keep an eye on, like, if those first couple of weeks are, like, I'm, you're like, "Oh, man, I managed to dodge this."

It also might start later, and that's okay. You just need to be aware. Right. I said that there's other disorders under the umbrella of maternal mental health issues, and another one is postpartum psychosis. And it's essentially what it sounds like.

The mental health disorder can become so pronounced after birth that you may suffer from delusions. You may become paranoid. You may be disoriented. You may feel disassociated from the people around you, or the world itself, or reality.

“And that is considered, so postpartum depression is something you need to seek help for.”

Postpartum psychosis is considered a, you immediately take a trip to the ER when you were the people around you figure out that you are suffering from postpartum psychosis.

Yeah, and it's, it's very rare, we should say.

It's one out of every 1,000 bursts, but they say that because very sadly, about 4.5% of the cases of that psychosis result in harm to the baby. And 5%, 5% result in suicide. And if, you know, if you've ever seen some terrible news report about like a mom that said, you know, God told me to drown my baby.

“That's what we're talking about here, because delusions of grandeur, a lot of times religious in nature, obsessive thoughts about harming you or harming your baby.”

Um, extreme paranoia like that kind of thing. That's, that's what falls under the postpartum psychosis spanner. Yeah, and from researching postpartum psychosis, they found that there are some additional risk factors. Seems like the number one risk factor for developing it is if you have a history, whether a personal or familial of bipolar disorder. Um, and that if you start having sleep loss that triggers a bouts of mania, that is a really big red flag that you are at a great risk of going on to develop postpartum psychosis.

Meaning, so sleep loss, which you already are getting from just having a new baby, but if that triggers mania, that's a, that's a big red flag. And that's probably what kicks the whole thing off as that loss of sleep. It's, like, crazy important. And it's nuts that evolution didn't take that into account. Like, oh, yeah, I need to make sure everybody sleeps after this, not stays awake for the next two years. Um, because it'll drive people crazy, really, that that can trigger that of all of these maternal mental health issues.

Yeah, I mean, that can be rough on a family. We got very, very lucky with Ruby and that she was a pretty good sleeper from early on, but I've heard some nightmare stories and it's really tough sleep is so, so important.

“I think another thing we didn't point out was for the postpartum psychosis.”

It's almost always a first time pregnancy, too, which is differentiated from postpartum general postpartum depression, but, you know, some similar risk factors for regular PPD.

If you have a history of depression or anxiety, you're more likely. If you had a childhood trauma that you experienced, if you underwent infertility treatment, you may be more likely to. Uh, if it's an unplanned pregnancy or if you're a low income mother, especially if you're like literally living in poverty, they experience PPD. It twice the rate of higher income moms. Um, and there are also a couple of biological factors. If you suffer from anemia or a hypothyroidism. And then it can be genetic. I think, uh, depending on what study you've seen us in anywhere from 14 to 30%.

Um, have, uh, like potentially a genetic factor, like inheritable. Oh, really? I hadn't seen that at all.

“Um, let's talk about, um, postpartum or perinatal, uh, OCD and perinatal mood and anxiety disorder real quick, too, okay?”

Yeah. So POCD, this is, this to me sounds like the hardest to deal with because I think you're probably the least likely to step forward and say I need some help everybody. But it's excessive, obsessive, compulsive disorder that develops way more quickly than typical obsessive compulsive disorder, but usually very shortly after birth, uh, after the baby's born. Um, and it's, you know, like, uh, ritual behaviors like checking on the baby andcessantly worrying that the baby's going to get contaminated with germs.

Um, and, uh, lots of intrusive thoughts that can be super disturbing.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think it's a natural tendency if you've, especially for a first time parent to have this new seemingly very fragile tender thing that you're in charge of keeping alive.

Uh, it's a pretty natural instinct to think to maybe think like they're so small and so fragile. Uh, so my dumb advice just as a parent is like, they're, they're more robust than you think. And, uh, they're, they're made to survive and they're made to live, uh, generally speaking. So you have that on your side. Um, but I can see how it's, it's pretty easy for maybe someone to go down this road of, worrying about germs or checking on the baby every, like, ten minutes in the middle of the night and to become sort of obsessive.

Uh, this, the POCD can, um, cross the line into some, um, even unwanted sexual obsessions, uh, like a mother apparently can have sexualized images, uh, flashing through their mind while they're changing a diaper, uh, which is just sort of a, uh,

Right. And, in reality, that's all it is is just like a sleep or your hormones or something just really unusual that, uh,

uh, flash through your head and as an intrusive thought, it does not mean that that's who you are or what, or you're leading to some awful outcome. Right. And I think that's kind of worth saying again, Chuck, because this is the kind of thing that you would not, who you're going to tell that to. Oh, I know. And I think sexualized thoughts about our baby. Yeah. Right. For sure. Not going to tell that to anybody. It's going to be so tough to admit that.

“So you have to know that it's not you. It is your hormones. It is not you. You do, you have not suddenly developed a sexual attraction to infants or children.”

You like, it's not you. So if you're having thoughts like this, you're not alone. It's actually more common than you would think.

And you like, you can get treatment for this thing. You should get treatment for it because you're probably really being hard on yourself right now. Yeah. And, you know, and if you give into that thought, then that's when you're maybe avoiding, bathing your baby or avoiding caring and holding for your baby. So, uh, it's a tough thing to come forward and talk to people. So that's why it's really great to have a great support system of of other moms, friends and families to people to lean on because I guarantee if you,

if you, if you say that we are to thought you've had out loud in a group of moms that will be a couple of them, then they're like, I had the same thoughts. It's okay. Right. Yeah.

“Yeah. Hopefully you have a group like that or confined when you know. Yeah.”

Then there's a postnatal mood and anxiety disorder, which essentially is a really terrible positive feedback loop to where you feel like you're not bonding with your baby well enough or fast enough. And so you start to become anxious, which the baby picks up on and the baby becomes distressed or less likely to connect with you or pay attention to you, which makes it harder for you to read the baby, which makes it less likely for you to bond in any kind of quick fashion and it just keeps going in this cycle.

Yeah. For sure. And you know what? I want to recommend a podcast because if you maybe you're a little more isolated and you don't feel like you have this, or if you just don't have this sort of support system around you, our old buddy, Jesse Thorne, he runs the maximum fun network in co-host with Judge John Hodgman with her pal. His wonderful wife Teresa is she's just the best and I don't think they do it anymore, but

Teresa and Biz Ellis had a show called One Bad Mother. I'm pretty sure they stopped doing, but they did it for many, many years and One Bad Mother was just a great outlet and support system

for just this kind of stuff. You know, the message was always like you're doing, just fine, you're

doing okay, you think you're the worst and you're really the best. And like, you know, if you're having a hard time and you're, you feel like you're alone in this, like turn on that podcast, like do something like that to know that you're not alone out there. Right. And pour yourself a mega pint of wine and treat yourself to the bad moms trilogy in one sitting. That's right. So you want to take a break? Yeah, let's take a break and we'll get into some statistics about other communities and how they deal with this.

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New episodes weekly. Every Wednesday is part of my new network, The Dear Chelsea Network. If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less, so I don't have to do so much. So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem? I'm Yamanika and I'm out.

Listen to your the problem with Yamanika starting on July 15 on the iHeart Radio app. Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. [Music] All right, everyone, we're back. We promised talk about statistics and in this case, there are some pretty stark racial disparities when it comes to PPD.

As far as the incidence of occurrence and very sadly treatment. Up to 40% of black and latina moms suffer from PPD, which is about twice the rate of non-Hispanic white moms. And single black mothers are six times more likely than the general population to experience it. Really sadly latina women and black women are 57% and 41% respectively less likely to start treatment for PPD than white women. Right, and there's a lot of reasons for why they're less likely to start treatment.

In part, there's a stigma, just like with any culture. I think in latino culture, that stigma can be even stronger than white or black culture. But for say black women in particular, it can often go undiagnosed because it doesn't present as the classic symptoms that the ember scale is designed to detect. Rather than depressive symptoms, black moms might have irritability, self-criticism, deep fatigue, insomnia. These are not all necessarily shared by all new mothers.

And so the doctor just might miss it. They might be like, "Hey, you're just aggro. Stop being aggro." Right, you know?

“Yeah, I think they came up with a different scale just for black mothers, right?”

Yeah, the Jackson Hog Phillips contextualized stress measure. Next time you have a party, give that out as a party favor for guests. Yeah, for sure. But that's great that they were like, "Hey, we have a whole in our treatment plan here as far as you've been diagnosing this in black women." Right? So they came up with their own scale, which is awesome.

The basically everybody, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the AMA, the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Everyone says recommends that everybody should be screened for prenatal, or I'm sorry, perinatal depression, but very sadly less than 20% of all women are screened for these mental health disorders and those numbers are a lot lower for women of color. Right? So those are reasons why they might not actually go seek out treatment for PPD. There's also reasons why they're more likely to suffer from PPD in the first place, and those seem to center on social determinants of health, which is like your environment, your income level, the amount of free time you might even have to go see the doctor.

All of these things tend to be less than what a white mother would experience, and all of them help increase the likelihood of experiencing postpartum depression. Yeah, for sure. So regardless, look at whatever you're ethnic or racial group, there are essentially the same causes. I mean, PPD, even though it might manifest itself differently, even though access to help for PPD is different, those are all human-made obstacles.

The biological basis for it is the same in every case, and essentially it's a combination of hormones and the stark-raving horror that is becoming a new pet. Yeah, for sure.

Like we were saying, you're thrown into this brand new thing where your first charge is like, "Alright, keep this baby alive."

“I mean, I remember, and this is like, I imagine it's the same with adoption as with it, just a regular birth, but all of a sudden someone just hands you a baby.”

And the nurses see the look on your face, and hopefully the nurses are all as great as ours were, they're just like, "You're doing fine, they told us what I said." It was like, "Hey, these babies are meant to stay alive, you're going to be just fine." Just feed them this way, and you're on the right track by just getting food into their body. And so, you know, like I said, evolution has happened in such a way where they want these babies to live, so you've already got a bit of a head start. But being bombarded by hormones and a change in hormones is definitely something that's hard to deal with because your body's bombarded with hormones because you're pregnant to help you, you know, to help you be successfully pregnant and to stay pregnant.

And then immediately after within like 72 hours, most of these hormones go back to their previous state, and that's just a big break to throw on.

“Yeah, it's pretty mean of evolution, really, to just be like, "Here's all the stuff that you need to have a baby. Now you don't have a baby anymore. Who cares about you?"”

And your baby's like, "Thanks for the ride, lady." Right, they could have been like, "Well, let's just tap these down like beer slowly of the course of six months." Yeah, what the hey, you know? I know. I'm a childless man, cis-even, and I am offended by that. I'm mad at natural selection for that. It's just totally unfair. It's just unfair. Well, what are some of these hormones? Let's talk about them.

Well, you got good old progesterone, everybody knows that one. That one won the Super Bowl last year. That's right. It helps you create your placenta that the baby's going to, I guess, attach to. I remember, if I remember my health class from eighth grade correctly, it also stimulates blood vessel growth, which helps get nutrients and oxygen to the womb. Progesterone, it's like any hormone. It's actually quite clever. We have a finite number of hormones. Not that many, actually. I'm not sure how many.

But they do so many different things and they do so many different things and combinations. It's just elegant and beautiful. The human body can be, except when the hormone levels drop too quickly. Yeah, for sure. There's also, of course, estrogen that's going to help the uterus grow. Contribute to fetal development as far as organs and things go. It's going to stimulate that milk duct development. Relaxing is another one. That's the most chill of all. That's going to inhibit uterine contractions until you need them to avoid premature birth.

And then it's going to do double duty and relax and soften the pelvic joints when you're preparing for birth. And then finally we have oxytocin.

They really shoot through the roof at the beginning of labor to stimulate uterine contractions. Yeah. And then, again, like we said, within about 72 hours of birth, at least estrogen and progesterone that had increased tenfold just goes back to normal. And these huge hormonal swings are just tough to deal with. You know, it's tough to know which way is up. Okay. That's just the hormonal, the biological aspect of it. Yeah. There's also the environmental aspect of it, the nurture version. That was nature. This is the nurture part.

“And having a new baby comes along with all of a sudden, you have to stay at home with your new baby and can't do anything.”

You aren't sleeping. I think that that is like kind of overlooked by people who've never had kids, or underestimated, I think, maybe, or who haven't had kids that don't sleep very well.

And then you also have to nurse. You have been physically gone through the ringer taken through the ringer. Like there's all sorts of different things that come that are specific exclusively to just having had a baby that combined with the hormones. You just come together and the very least give almost all new mothers the baby blues. And then some moms postpartum depression, postpartum mood and anxiety disorder, postpartum psychosis postpartum OCD. Yeah. And you know, as far as the sleep thing goes, even if you have like a great sleep or like we did, you're still going to have disrupted sleep for a while because you have to get up and feed that baby in the middle of the night.

If you have a partner when you're having a baby, imagine, I can't imagine how tough this is on your own, but yeah step up, take feet and middle of the night feedings.

“Let that mom get as much sleep as possible. And then they also say sleep when the baby sleep.”

So embrace those naps all day long. If like your baby has a great nap in the afternoon, so should you. Right. Don't like your mother-in-law. Well, if she's willing to come over and watch the baby overnight, fake it. Yeah. Oh, man. And we had a lot of help. So like, because, you know, my mom and Emily's mom were both living here at the time. And so I just really feel for people that don't have that kind of help and feel like they're trapped at home. So my other advice as a test add is to get out in the world. You might think that your baby is just a walking sickness bomb waiting to happen if they go and breathe the world's air.

Yeah.

But there's nothing better than you can do for yourself in your baby than to get out in the world as much as possible as soon as possible.

Yeah. They'll be just fine. Great advice, Chuck, you are just rolling with it today. Well, I hope I've learned something. I think you've learned a lot. Yeah.

“So yes, you have your hormone levels plummeting. That seems like a pretty good answer to where postpartum depression comes from, right?”

Yeah.

But it turns out that they've zoomed in and gotten even more granular if you're like a sea sweet type.

And have figured out that there's this one hormone in particular that really seems to be largely responsible. It's not the only one responsible for it, but it's it's a pretty it got caught red handed with like a bag with the dollar sign on it wearing a black mask kind of skulking away. That's right. So what is it, Chuck? Uh, it is aloe pregnant alone.

Mm-hmm. It's funny. Dave wrote this and he was like good luck pronouncing that and Dave, Dave buddy, that one's pretty easy compared to a lot of the stuff that we see. For sure. But that is a stereotype. Yes. That's a steroid naturally produced in the brain.

“And it plays a couple of key roles during pregnancy and that it inhibits the release of oxytocin,”

which we already talked about to avoid premature labor, which you don't want. It also protects the developing fetal brain from all those stress hormones that mom has. Right. Okay. So this is pretty great stuff. Unfortunately, just like all the other hormones, it says so long, I've done my thing, like within, you know, a couple of days of having given birth.

So all of a sudden, not only is this a hormonal change, this natural anti-depressant has suddenly just vanished on you. And this can really seem to trigger postpartum depression in a lot of women. Yeah, for sure. So it's going to lower their anxiety for a while while they're pregnant and boost a mother's mood. And then after that baby is born when it crashes out, it's, it's probably feels akin to like going off and SSRI or something. But quickly, like, I mean, whenever you go off a medication like that, you're supposed to step it down slowly.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Keep it off. This is like again, nature just being a total bee. Ripping that stuff away from you and all of a sudden you're just, you just go and cold turkey off of this and it's a press that you got used to over nine months. Yeah, for sure. So Chuck one thing that we've really been focusing on is the mom and the mom definitely suffers from post-apart and depression, but so can the baby as well. Yeah, for sure, pregnant women with PPD are far more likely to deliver pre-term baby or baby with low birth weight. So there can be a literal like a physical outcome of postpart and depression for the baby.

And we talked earlier about black and Latino women experiencing PPD at higher rates. So that also is going to correlate over to birth outcomes because black women are 50% more likely to give pre-term to give birth pre-term than white women and more than twice as likely to have a baby with a low birth weight. Right, this of course makes it even more pressure laden for you to get it just right, right? So that also can affect your ability to bond with your baby. And again, as we saw with postpartum mood and anxiety disorder, that can create a feedback cycle where you get more and more anxious about it, more and more depressed about it.

And that that affects your bonding even further, which you get more and more depressed and anxious about, and that affects your baby as well. Yeah, for sure. Should we take a break? Yeah, there's one other thing I think before we break to point out, and that is that if you have postpartum depression, it doesn't mean that you don't want to bond with your baby.

Yeah, you got thought you're about to say, it's not you, it's them, it's the baby.

It's the baby's fault, yeah. He's just not that into you.

“All right, I'm glad we could make a sort of a light joke, I hope it came across that way, and we will be back right after this with treatment options because there's great news on the horizon.”

[Music] I'm Munga Shategather and I'm back with a new season of the podcast Skyline Drive. This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about, and what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you, and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain as opposed to his brain.

Here's some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration and get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing, but it doesn't work. Make it look more defined, they say it works, I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, how to live forever on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

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New episodes weekly, every Wednesday is part of my new network, the Dear Chelsea Network. If he got a bunch of women, then I shall have a bunch of men. Do better, or do less, so I don't have to do so much. So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem?

I'm Yamanika, and I'm out. Listen to your the problem with Yamanika starting on July 15th on the iHeart Radio app. Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Okay, Chuck, so you said there's great news on the horizon, and we're about to lay it on them. All the moms who are balling and yelling and doing all the things while they're listening to this episode.

Treatment is quite viable. That's right, standard treatment is what you might think. It's therapy, perhaps anti-depressant medication, certainly CBTE cognitive behavioral therapy. We've talked about a lot, that's been proven to be pretty effective for PPD and postpartum anxiety. And everything.

Yeah, and everything in general. But in the case of CBTE, you know, you're identifying these triggers that seem very automatic. These thought patterns that you think you can't help. And, you know, coach you through that and how to develop a healthier way of responding to those things when they do happen. Right, God bless Dr. Aaron T. Beck, the creator of CBTE.

Yeah, for sure. There's also a medication. We talked about aloe pregnant alone being discovered as like a main culprit for postpartum depression.

That led to some drugs being expressly targeted to basically help that transition.

So you don't just go culturekey, you kind of taper off of that stuff.

And that, of course, gives moms pause, like any kind of medication, can give a lot of moms pause because they're like, I'm nursing. So what's that going to do to the baby? Yeah, for sure. They've studied this, the current sort of wisdom on this is that they have been detected in very, very low levels.

Sometimes even undetectable levels in breast milk, there are rare reports of adverse effects on infants or infants. So that's, that's where the science currently stands. Yes, I also saw that peroxatine and sergerine, which is saroxa and zoloft. Okay. They seem to be the preferred anti-depressants for nursing mothers because they have shorter half-life than other SSRIs.

And the past to breast milk and smaller amounts than other SSRIs. So if SSRIs in general are okay, these two are super okay. According to the medical establishment, not me because I'm not a doctor. That's right.

“And by the way, we did, I think, pretty good episodes on breastfeeding.”

Back in the day, that was a two-part of, right? We did one on bottle feeding and one on breastfeeding. Right. Yeah. So feeding your baby and, you know, I recommend you do those.

And we got, you know, it's always when it's two to dudes podcasting about this stuff, about lady stuff.

We're always a little nervous. And we always get really good feedback from women that say, like, you guys did a really good job. And it's good that you guys are out there sort of not feeling like it has to come from a woman's perspective. So I hope we're doing this all just as, you know. Yeah, I hope so too. I think you're doing fine.

I think you're doing great. But I'm just another sister dude. So if you want to target a Alepregnant alone, there is a drug called Brexanolone. Yeah.

Yeah. There's another one called Zura Nolone. Yeah. It's around. Those are the generic terms for them.

The problem is, is as it stands right now.

If you're paying out of pocket with zero insurance, you're going to pay 34 grand for one. In the United States, I'm sure it's like 10 bucks in Canada. Yeah. Or 15 grand for the other. Shame, shame, shame.

Yeah. Hopefully, if you have even passingly decent insurance in the United States, like you're not going to pay anything even remotely like that.

“But yes, I think you should say it again, Chuck.”

Yeah. Still even if insurance is covering it, shame, shame, shame, shame. Capital S. H. A. M. E. Good for you, buddy. And now here's an ad for Sura Nolone.

Oh, man. You're managing to squeeze in some jokes. I like that. I like you. So can men get postpartum depression?

The answer is yes, that can happen.

Apparently between eight and ten percent of new dads suffer from some kind of anxiety or depression after the birth of a job. And it also may be connected to hormones in some cases. It's usually later than women might experience it between three and six months later. Maybe up to a year later, but a lot of the same, you know, issues.

Sleep issues, loss of appetite, feeling overwhelmed, tired, sad, anxious. And also the same people at risk. If you're younger dad, if you have a history of depression, you are struggling financially, or if you're just having trouble in your marriage or relationship, you know, you don't have to be a married to have a baby.

We all know that. All of those same kind of risk factors. Right. And there's also additional risk factors that dads customarily have that new moms. Ness is don't necessarily.

And that's like the new mom is expected to be a great mom and raise a great healthy, well adjusted baby right out of the box. The dad is expected to really step it up. And provide for his new family. And that can often mean like, well, you're stuck here in this job.

And you're now beholden to this employer. And like you may, this, that might not be the greatest feeling in the world for you, right then. And at the very least, it's additional pressure. So that can also kick off postpartum depression and dads,

“which was, I think best expressed in the way I'm so on everything she wants.”

That's right. And I hope this is clear, but to be clear, we're not, obviously talking about the old days. We're like, the man's got the job and the woman doesn't work in as an expected to. But, you know, in two income families, a lot of times when a mom has a baby. They, the very least, hopefully, have a great maternity leave kind of situation.

If not, sometimes they have to leave like whatever job and just not get paid for a while.

Or at least keep the ship afloat till mom can get back to work.

“Yeah, and one of the, I guess, quirks of the United States economy, I guess,”

is that, especially if you, if you have a two income house and there, there is not great maternity leave or paternity leave. Both parents have to go to work very soon after the birth. They will have to put their kid in childcare. The United States, unlike some other countries, does not have free childcare.

It is a paid problem, private business industry. And some couples figure out that the cost of daycare is more than say the mom or the dad would actually bring home. And so in that sense, it makes sense to just for the mom or the dad to stay home, whoever has the lower income that daycare would exceed. That's nuts that that happens to anybody.

And it happens to a decent amount, at least say anecdotally. Yeah, for sure, daycare is really, really expensive. And it's, it's a real shame because that can, that helps the family that helps for outcomes for the kid and their development. So my recommendation is to use your voice at the voting booth. And if there are candidates in your local city or state or nationwide that,

believe in the idea of free childcare, then speak with your vote. That's all I'm going to say on that. Okay. One other thing too, Chuck, it's not just environment. Just like with postpartum depression and women, postpartum depression and men also seems to have to do with hormones.

“And because men's hormones are the balance of hormones change during pregnancy as well, which is pretty neat.”

Yeah, for sure. Your testosterone is going to probably drop during the pregnancy and continues to get lower after the birth happens.

And people think, you know, researchers think that that's basically to keep,

to look at Bay and to reduce aggressive tendencies while, you know, father infant bonding is happening like chill out. Dad, you need to be gentler right now. So we're going to lower your teeth. Right. And also stick around and help raise the kid rather than go look further your next conquest.

Yeah. I'm in. I wonder if I should say this one here. Well, we can edit it out. All right.

We'll see. One of the funny things that Emily has done lately is, you know, you know, all the, you know, in a stupid, man-a-spear world, like, you know, low tea, beta male, soy.

That's another one, like your soy, like because you eat soy instead of meat like a man does. She will anytime. I don't know. Just being wishy about something or what if she feels like she just wants to kind of poke bun at me. She'll, she'll call me like a beta cook.

Or ask me if I have low tea or like, hey, soy, come over here and help me with this thing. Oh, my gosh. It's there.

I mean, it always just brings the house down between the two of us because it's just such a dumb thing anyway.

I like that she's taken something from the Manisfier and kind of twisted it to use it in our own marriages comedy. I would love to be sitting on the couch someday and heard you get to you because yes, I would leave you. So funny. Yeah.

“I'm waiting for Ruby to be like, what's a beta cook?”

All right. Let's see. Oh, yeah. I'm a post-parameter press and it's also treatable and dad. So if you think you have it, take help because it's very treatable too.

That's right. You got anything else? I got nothing else, man. I always feel like we're on ice gates with these episodes. I didn't feel like that about this one.

I always get a little nervous in how to speak about this stuff. So I hope you did okay. You did great, man. You did great. Well, then sounds like we both did great.

But I want mom's to write in and say you did great. I don't care what I think about you and what you think about me anymore. We know we love each other. All right. Fair enough.

Okay. Yeah.

If you're a new mom or an old mom or an even never had kids,

it doesn't matter, we would love to hear from you about this episode. Yeah. And not just saying we're great. Like if we fell short, let us know and we'll try and do better and correct it. Well, put it, man.

I'm glad you said that too. Yeah. Yeah. We sound like a couple of. I know, like, please make us feel better.

Great. Couple of cooks. Beta cooks. Yeah. But since Chuck just laughed about Beta cooks again, it's so funny.

That means it's time for a listener mail. So is the one that really gets me? Well, you know, it's crazy. So I actually does raise your estrogen levels and can give men mini boobs. Oh.

Well, great. Give it to me. I love it. All right. This is from Adam and Michigan.

Hey, guys. I'm a little more than disappointed in the three mile island episode.

He was a popular wrestler in 1980s in the WWF.

“He was build as being from three mile island.”

And what's been imposing 6, 6, 2, 90. Wow. Yeah. Yellow contact lenses. And a finishing move was called the Adam smasher.

This is so great.

He was a rather imposing figure with a very creepy theme song.

And he made quite an impact. His real name is Brian Clark. He's still alive and looks almost like he did in the 1980s. Adam for Michigan. Nice.

I never heard of him.

So thank you for letting us know Adam.

Yeah. That's fun. You hadn't heard of him? No. I mean, I didn't keep up with wrestling much.

No. I didn't either. But sounds like we were missing out on a lot. But, you know, we're just so I love in beta cocks. So what do we know?

“If you want to be like Adam and let us know.”

Wait. Is this from Adam bomb himself? No. This is A.D.A.M. Okay.

Well, there was an Adam bomb who was a DJ at Alba Mediate for a while. He had the soul something show. Oh, wow. I bet I listened to it. It was really good.

Well, anyway. Thanks a lot. Adam for Michigan for letting us know about Adam bomb. We love that.

“And if you want to get in touch with us, like Adam did,”

you can send us an email to send it off to [email protected]. Stuff you should know is a production of iheartradio. For more podcasts, my heart radio visit the iheartradio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.