3,361,596 members
12,339,752 petition signatures
$17,571,785,510 diverted from Big Pharma
HR20-New Mother’s Mandated Mental Health Test-JUST PASSED HOUSE!
A sweeping government policy for all new births in the United States has just passed the House of Representatives and is now headed to the Senate. The Mother’s Act, if passed, will mandate that all new mothers be screened by means of a list of subjective questions that will determine if each mother is mentally fit to take their newborn home from the hospital. Just imagine that after your child is born, you are told that you can’t take them home since a multiple choice questionnaire wasn’t answered correctly. Just imagine being told that the only way you can take your child home is if you or your spouse goes into treatment or on anti-depressants which we know causes psychosis, delusions, and even homicidal thoughts. It just doesn’t make sense. Unfortunately, this bill is on a fast track–No public debate, no public disclosure of the broad impact on our society and that is why we need you to act now!
The Mother’s Act violates our Constitutional right to privacy and your right to liberty and it is just outright dangerous. That is why we need you to help stop this. We urgently need you to call and email each Senator on the HELP Committee and tell them you STRONGLY OPPOSE the MOTHER’S ACT and that you are OUTRAGED that there was NO public debate or disclosure on the impact this would have on our society as a whole.
Please call the following Senators on the HELP Committee and tell them that you want the Mother’s Act to die in committee.
Lisa Murkowski, R: 202-224-6665, AK
John McCain, R: 202-224-2235, AZ
Christopher Dodd, D: 202-224-2823, CT
Johnny Isakson, R: 202-224-3643, GA
Tom Harkin, D: 202-224-3254, IA
Pat Roberts, R: 202-224-4774, KS
Edward Kennedy D: 202-224-4543, MA
Barbara Mikulski D: 202-224-4654, MD
Richard Burr, R: 202-224-3154, NC
Kay Hagan, D: 202-224-6342, NC
Judd Gregg, R: 202-224-3324, NH
Jeff Bingaman, D: 202-224-5521, NM
Sherrod Brown, D 202-224-2315, OH
Tom Coburn, R 202-224-5754, OK
Jeff Merkley, D 202-224-3753, OR
Bob Casey, D 202-224-6324, PA
Jack Reed, D 202-224-4642, RI
Lamar Alexander R 202-224-4944, TN
Orrin Hatch R 202-224-5251, UT
Bernard Sanders, I: 202-224-5141, VT
Patty Murray, D, 202-224-2621, WA
Michael Enzi, R, 202-224-3424, WY
For full text of the Senate bill, go here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s111-324
Melanie Stokes’ story is heart wrenching without a doubt. But it doesn’t justify this sort of government intrusion into the private lives of individuals.
Here is her story as told by the webpage: http://www.melaniesbattle.org/story.html
When Melanie Stokes become pregnant, she seemed to have everything in place. She was a successful pharmaceutical sales manager happily married to a physician. She had a supportive family and her share of brains and beauty. She was a radiant pregnant woman, eager to meet the child inside of her and to begin her new life as a mother.
On February 23, 2001, Sommer Skyy was born, beautiful and healthy. But Melanie’s mother, Carol, realized something wasn’t quite right with her daughter. Melanie, who had dreamed all her life of holding her baby girl in her arms, didn’t seem to know how to respond to her dream becoming a reality. Carol convinced herself that the labor had exhausted Melanie, but that when she recovered, she would return to her normal self.
But Melanie didn’t bounce back.
When Sommer was only a month old, Melanie’s depression had grown so severe that she had stopped eating and drinking and could no longer swallow. She began to have paranoid thoughts about others–she thought that her neighbors across the street had all closed their blinds because they thought she was a bad mother. She became gaunt, hallow-eyed, a shell of her former self. Then, she began searching for a way to end her life.
Melanie’s was hospitalized three times in seven weeks. She was given four combinations of anti-psychotic, anti-anxiety, and anti-depressant medications. She also underwent electroconvulsive therapy. Her family rallied around her with all their strength, but in the end, Melanie jumped to her death from the twelfth floor of a Chicago hotel.
Melanie with her mother (right) and two aunts who
supported her during the postpartum months
Melanie’s death left her family with many unanswered questions. Carol is angry at the doctors who did not seem to recognize the peril Melanie was in. She does not understand why she was not given the information she needed to help fight this illness. This website is her effort to get the word out about postpartum psychosis. She hopes that by sharing Melanie’s struggle, she will raise awareness about this volatile, often misunderstood, illness.
Melanie’s battle has become Carol’s Crusade. After Melanie’s Death, Carol contacted every newspaper and magazine she could think of. She has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and in the pages of Jet and Ebony. Carol believes that ignorance is our worst enemy in the battle against postpartum mood disorders. She has organazined marches, initiated legislation, distributed flyers in hospital maternity wards, and she has become an advocate for a silent section of our population: women who in the throes of postpartum psychosis killed their own children. Carol has become a pen pal to many of them, and has appeared in court on numerous occasions to testify on their behalf.
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Melanie’s story is not uncommon, but nonetheless sad. Women have been dealing with postpartum depression throughout history. If we let government come in and mandate what we do, and force us to test – it is only to line the pockets of drug companies. They want testing of our children, ultimately by age 4 to determine if they have the made-up diagnosis of ADD so our children can be labeled and drugged before beginning school. This is a lifetime tag and drug.
More often than not, mental health issues are about nutrition and toxicity. Our bodies are soooooo overwhelmed with toxicity in our air, water and FOOD (72 pesticides are a permanent part of our food chain, and we all know GMOs are forever changing and killing us) — but when you consider there is no nutrition in any of the products we purchase as “food” (with the only exception being organic, non-GMO). We need to start with nutrition, not pharaceuticals. DRUGS never cured anyone of anything; only mask symptoms and create side-effects that require more drugs.
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Nicholas Jouvanis Reply:
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:45 am
Sue, you are on target. As a therapist I can add that medical psychiatry is quackery and contributes to the problems it doesn’t understand. Medical psychiatry is only seeking to increase its control, and the avaricious pharmaceutical industry is behind this unconstitutional law.
Postpartum depression has its foundation in a number of different factors, mentioned on my site: http://www.thespiritualkey.com/Depression.html#PPD PPD is eminently healable without drugs.
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Karen Reply:
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
My PPD wasn’t healed until my thyroid medication was adjusted. It turns out it was not being properly managed throughout my miscarriages, pregnancy and post-partum. Whether to use drugs, and what type, should be considered, not immediately discarded. Some of us truly do have hormonal imbalances that are best corrected by drugs.
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Alan Foos Reply:
April 24th, 2009 at 1:23 am
You are SO right. Psychiatry is nothing but the purest form of medical fraud and government kickback. None of meds being shoved down our throats are in any way acknowledging or treating fundamental causes, which when properly evaluated most often stem from bad medical practices in the first place. What to do about these things? Raise hell is all I can figure…
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A family w/ ADD Reply:
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:04 pm
ADD is NOT a made-up diagnosis. True ADD (not metal toxicity, allergies or other situations with similar symptoms) is almost always genetic, and thus not “curable”. That’s why the drugs are life-long, if they help. Brain scans do truly show the difference in function between ADD and nuero-typical brains. As ADD manifests differently in each person (my 4 family members all have different issues), the drugs may or may not help the symptoms that are a problem for the person. BTW, none of us are on Ritalin or Adderall, although I swear my husband would benefit!
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Not only does this effort threaten our liberty and privacy rights but it is part of a history of the regulation of race and citizenship at the site of women’s bodies. What we need is family and mother-centered care like the midwifery model that puts care providers in longer, more attentive, direct-contact with their clients. We need connection to community, access to resources, not one-size-fits-all tests and state determined treatment.
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A Careaga Reply:
April 30th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Indra, I suspect you are more in tune with the most core issue here than many others.
Yes, it’s an issue of the philosophy of therapy and sparks all kinds of debates about drugs versus counseling versus alternative medicine, etc…
But the real heart of this matter is something far more insidious and sadly common: a full on assault by socialists on individual freedoms and especially in recent decades on the rights of parents.
To know how well funded and well organized this assault is, one needs only review Tuesday April 28th, 2009 episode of Law & Order SVU where the episode went from a case about child neglect to an all out assault on the rights of mothers to not vaccinate their children. A completely innocent person in the show is charged with murder because her child gave another measles. This is not just an example of uneducated writers who are forcing their views on unwitting Americans, but demonstrates a repeated undeniable attempt to berate Americans who support freedom and laud those that give it up for social welfare. In another episode an NRA member was a wife-beater!
This, combined with the reality that somewhere there IS a prosecutor’s office that would do such a thing and a judge that would allow it proves that our society is indeed sick. And parents are on the butt end of a long crooked stick of abuse!
Freedom is the core issue, and the right to not be Jim Crow’d whether you’re voting, buying a gun, or having a baby!
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Indra Lusero Reply:
May 4th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Well, I don’t think it’s a clear cut freedom versus social welfare thing since without social welfare there may be no such thing as freedom for those without resources or access. It’s more a matter of being discerning about where the social welfare is, how it is set up and what the underlying assumptions of it are. For instance, the underlying assumption that people of different races couldn’t and shouldn’t co-exist was a faulty underlying assumption of the Jim Crow laws you reference. Just like the idea that there is one kind of health care is a faulty assumption underlying these sorts of mandatory interventions.
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I grew up during the 50’s & 60’s before all the stops and whistles started to be put in place. This reminds me of the required reading from school “1984″. This is not only disturbing but another way to control the gene pool.
What I don’t understand is why people are allowing government to take away thier rights. What next?
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Govenment mandates for “the common good” are always suspect, but this (HR20) is the most specious yet devised. It is not really about “Mothers” but rather, all about Big Pharma and psychiatry continuing their industry of “test”, label and drug. They alone benefit, at the expense of victimized normals.
If you find this bill intrusive of the rights of mothers and their children, then stem this madness by writing or phoning your Senator.
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What’s nest? Everyone must say “Sig Heil” before being allowed to breath, walk, talk?
I do feel sorry for Melanie and others who are affected by post partum depression. We should help them but it’s not the governments place to give “pass” and “fail” grades. On top of that many could pass that later would fail. This is ridiculous.
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I am a Licensed Mental Health Practitioner in Nebraska. The number of Postpartum depression compared to the number deliveries is rather small and certainly dose not warrant government intervention of this type. I think it would be helpful for women and a family members be educated better about what to expect after the child is born and how the child’s birth and first year of life may affected them emotionally and mentally.
I do not know anything about the midwifery model but providing some sort of community support after childbirth is a much better solution for a number of reasons including that community support workers have sufficient training to recognize when a person may need a professional evaluation by someone like myself. The type of evaluations therapists provide are more extensive and personal than a questionnaire.
This bill is over kill and is likely to cause more problems then it is meant to prevent.
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With postpartum depression no one talks about the fact a new mother’s progesterone levels drop precipitously when birthing a child/losing the placenta (the placenta is the major source of progesterone production during pregnancy). Adequate progesterone levels will help balance a young mother’s moods and not interfere with lactation given in physiologic doses. Women who state they’ve never felt better emotionally as when they were pregnant are those who enjoyed the higher levels of progesterone when they were pregnant. Of course, we will NOT learn about supporting a new mother with bioidentical progesterone as Big Pharma loses out in selling more drugs for depression and have deep pockets to keep the lobbyists going. Many young women are not even making adequate progesterone during the luteal phase of their menstrual cycle and this will cause mood swings and other PMS-related symptoms…I’ve done thousands of tests since 2001 and know this is an issue which can expand into postpartum depression issues if their bioidentical hormones are not in balance.
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Misty Reply:
May 7th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Have you ever studied placenta medicine? The idea is to dehydrate, crush, and encapsulate a mothers fresh placenta. She then takes these placenta pills to “wean” her body off of progesterone to prevent the sudden drop and resulting mood shifts.
I doubt there is funding to study this but I cannot see how it could hurt if moms are only ingesting thier own placentas.
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This is the most insidious attack on home and family that I have heard so far! Mental health is not even a government concern at the outset, and mandating mental health tests for a normal part of life is absurd. I am sure there are cases where a mother needs help, but that is a personal, family concern and decision, not a governmental or healthcare-industry concern. Who gives lawmakers the right to interfere with family issues? This is not abuse we are talking about, it is a natural response to a normal life situation that includes drastic, temporary hormonal changes.
Please take this completely off the books!!!
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We MUST stop this extreme action .. likely promoted by the drug industry. Most all these inoculations given to children have dangerous mercury ( & other toxic ingredients ) and we can NOT make laws that require such !
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I would advise anyone who is against this bill because of the propaganda perpetuated by this blog to read the content of the bill. It says absolutely nothing about requiring women to be tested before leaving the hospital/birth center. What it does give provisions for are things like funding for more research, and community support for women and families after giving birth. It is our responsibility to become informed before flaming a bill that we may actually support, and do good things in our fields. I am a doula and am very much in support of women and families. Please read the bill before calling senators and be an informed constituent.
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Determination of a new mother’s mental health is NOT the job of legislation. This is government sticking it’s nose where it doesn’t belong. We need LESS government and more personal responsibility from ALL Americans. Congress and the Executive isn’t going to; that should be very obvious! NO, and HELL no on HR 20. The FED has too much power. This sounds just like what Hitler did in Germany and look how THAT turned out!!!
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This legislation must be fought until it is repealed. How it ever got through a Congress of intelligent, caring people is a mystery to me. Possibly lack of attention and effective action in time from the public. Possibly extreme pressure from those who will profit financially. Well, now our path is clear. We must speak out against this shocking invasion of privacy and the right to make one’s own decisions!
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john martell Reply:
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:48 pm
THE ELEMENTS OF FASCISM ARE ALL AROUND US AND SPREDING LIKE CANCER.. THEY START SLOW AND UNNOTICED UNTIL ONE DAY YOU WAKE UP AND REALIZE THAT ALL IS LOST AND DEATH IS AN OPTION THAT YOU MUST DUE TO YOUR NEGLIGENCE NOT ONLY ACCEPT BUT EMBRACE AS THE BEST METHOD. ADDRESS THE ELEMENTS OF THE CANCEROUS FASCIST NEW WORLD ORDER AGENDA NOW BEFORE ITS TOO LATE, GRAB THEM BY THEIR PUNY LITTLE STERILE BLUE BALLS AND BRING THEM TO THEIR COWERING FASCIST KNEES..THEY ARE OUR SERVANTS AND WE ARE THEIR MASTERS
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stay away from Dr’s and have your babies @ home
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//gina\\ Reply:
April 24th, 2009 at 12:44 am
WISE Annie, Now that’s the BEST advice yet! Women have been doing this successfully since the beginning of time! Home schooling is also an excellent idea, if at all possible.
THE BRAINWASHING MUST END for us to ever rise up & out of this pathetic mess that some call FREEDOM!
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This is insanity, and it needs to be stopped NOW.
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this is all we need more control over americans. As if there is not already enough. While don’t you people in Washington loosen your grip on humanity…
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The lie here is that postpartum depression can be fixed by government intervention and anti-depressants.
Now that is a Whopper!
I keep voting out congress people who vote for these pro Big Pharma laws and pressure those still office to vote against these bills.
Let us not take away mother’s and their children’s rights to prop up weak politicians.
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Where are our freedoms????? We need less government- not more.
And- many women may “suffer” some small amount of depression after childbirth. That’s normal. Extreme cases are rare.
It’s hard to fathom where we’ll be in another few years. Ball and chain anyone?
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Some years back I had the opportunity to present a nutritional/diet/environmental relationship for ADD/ADHD to a local CHADD organization. This presentation was based on collected data and documentation from a Professor of Education who dedicated a good part of her career in research and training of educators who specifically dealt with learning disorders.
CHADD is a “support” organization for families/children with ADD/ADHD. After presenting my information to the local board for review and consideration, I was told they had “no interest in pursuing this alternative or even presenting it to the membership(families)” Being a supposed non biased group I couldn’t understand why they would not even consider this non invasive, healthy option. They “misplaced” all the material I gave to them, never to be returned. Upon researching further I came to find out a major portion of CHADD’s budget was funded by the drug company that developed/sold Ritalin. For other examples of pharma abuse log onto cchr.org and request free information on the “Making a Killing” DVD. Then share with everyone you care about.
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The baby just went through a horrific ordeal being born at a hospital, taking it away from its mother during the first few days of its life will be tramatic, for the baby and the mother. This is not a solution, plus the cost to our health care will be extremely burdensome. Our freedoms get shorter by each passing year.
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As a femlae who was diagnosed with no test as having Bipolar and became extreamely il due to the many toxic medications I was prescibed for 13, before my wake up call beginning in 04, and near death, I knew I had a choice and researched, and empowered myself by any and all means and did make a full and complete recovery, my only RX, is Armor Thyroid.
Lost are those 13 years, and my civil rights, my 3 children who were taught that I had a choice and choose to be ill, DUE to lack of educaton.
I am lucky to be alive despite my losses and my health that has been compromised by these many toxic meds, BUT I am alive and will ever do any and all I can to put an end, the insanity, the witch craft that psychiary and this non curing drugs crupt man/woman/child, FOR HIGH PROFIT.
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Calling senators by ‘phone and stuff is OK for u guys in the US but these needs accelerating worldwide. Are there plans to have a ‘tick-box’ type e-mail (the type used by Amnesty and other petition sites) which can be completed quickly so that the ‘powers that be’ who are even considering making this folly a law can be bombarded with ‘no thanks’s.
I am in Portugal, for instance, but with many UK contacts who I’m sure, like me, would like to ensure this sort of law won’t come to pass. We know very well that if you guys on the other side of ‘the pond’ are subjected to something that it’s only a matter of time before we get it too!
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What does it take to get the congress to understand that psychiatry is not a science; it is at best an art and at worst a practice of death and destruction? Psychiatry is the handmaiden of the pharmaceutical companies. Now we are to have a law that gives these medical terrorists the right to label every post partum mother as insane, with no actual way to reverse that label. Mandatory mental tests are not the answer. Stop this process!
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I have never heard of such communism in all my life. Just say NO to stupidity!
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I just made a call to my senator from Utah t strongly oppose this act! How in the world did it get this far without we the people knowing about it? We must join forces to fight and oppose the evil being imposed upon us…
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This is also extremely sexist. We obviously need more women in the White House.
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Women need postpartum support not government intervention. Postpartum Doulas should be available to all women. giving them the confidence and time to rest that they need, women are rushed home by the healthcare system to no support after giving birth.
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This is a poorly-thought-out bill. Not only does it create an adversarial role for the doctors, nurses and others who are responsible for helping the mother adjust and welcome her newborn, it renders a bureaucratic approach to “screening” (especially “new”) mothers at a very vulnerable time – at the birth of her child.
I don’t know in this case, however, many post-partum depressions are because of a sudden drop in progesterone levels after childbirth. (Progesterone maintains the pregnancy.) Other reseasons may include low B vitamins, thyroid levels that change after childbirth (most doctors are trained to measure the “wrong” thyroid test and miss this one frequently), and adrenal fatigue (which requires saliva testing or other sophisticated testing).
Women should be screened, but not in the way this bill would require. Moms need appropriate tests if there are indications of “depression,” not antidepressants or antipsychotic drugs.
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FINALLY! I have been saying for YEARS that one should have a license to become a parent. Asking some questions is perfectly reasonable considering the young and disasterous breeders out there.
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Amy Reply:
August 10th, 2009 at 8:39 am
You are crazy, if you support government control then you obviously don’t give two craps about Habeas corpus, the very thing upon which our country is based, or the constitution. No one should have to have a license to become a parent, which would violate your right to bodily integrity, “screening” women for PPD is a good idea and should be available to women who need or want it, but I am uncomfortable with the government making it compulsory for all new Mothers. Just imagine it in your head:You are told by a hospital employee or government official that you will not be allowed to take your child home with you or, worse yet, have any contact with him/her unless you take the test or take medication. And if you refuse both, you, like I said, could be prohibited from seeing your child, or even worse lose custody of your infant to the system. Would you like that to happen to EVERY Mother in the nation?!?! There is nothing more frightening than the government telling you that you are unfit simply because you refused a test you may not even need, and that if you want to see your child(ren)or take them home you MUST take medication if you refuse the it.
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As a mother I cannot imagine anything worse than having your baby taken from you. PERIOD. If you didn’t have postpartum depression when your baby was born, this law will make sure you do when you leave. Mothers are not computers. Human kindness and understanding would go much farther than the drugging of the afflicted person. But those items are impossible to patent, manufacture at low cost and sell at high cost for high profits – and low results. God bless America. I hope this bill doesn’t pass.
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Wally Marcoux Reply:
April 25th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
What’s next, if you can’t leave with your baby what are their plans? I hope they remember that Fathers have rights too. Are they going to take the same test? Hypothetical situation, the Mother is diagnosed with PPD and so is the father so is the state going to take care of the baby or are they going to give the baby to another family to raise. Are they going to be tested? There’s to many empty spots that there don’t seem to be any answers too. This law is almost as bad as when Bush Sr. was sterilizing Native American women. I just hope that our dear politicians have thought this thru, speaking of which, who was pushing this bill thru? Like I said, “I hope they think it thru!”
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well, i think it is wrong for any one to decide who is mentally fit or not. a multiple choice questionnaire is not really a way to determine if some one is unstable. it is a test, it can be cheated. it will just be a waste of time.
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This bill is complete and utter BS. Who in their right mind would ever want this? Seriously I just had a baby and I couldn’t imagine having to take a test to see if i was fit after just being in labor for 24 hours. This is the craziest thing I have EVER heard. I had more important things to worry about than some test to take. Like umm.. for instance.. my newborn BABY!! how dare these lawmakers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Did anyone actually read this?!?!?!
This is for funding, for the government to create provide education and training through the government for new mothers and fathers while in the hospital. Did you see how simple this law is, because it is only talking about funding, its an idea..its not even a plan…there is NOTHING in there that talks about taking children away.
HAHAHAHA omg I don’t want to insult anyone but are you kidding me?!?
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I think this s bull and should not be allowed to even be put out there as a law. I know I was never notified of this even possibly being brought into law. I totally disagree and agree it should not be a law!
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I believe that they have better things to speng money,time and attention to than some stupid piece of paper with some questions on it. Wouldnt that make a woman depressed to lose her baby after just having it. LET ME GUESS I MAN WROTE THE BILL!!!!!!
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The measure of a civilized socitey, said Margaret Meade, is how the society treats its women, children and the elderly. I wonder how congress would be measured by that yardstick. Answers to women’s post pardum issues aren’t found in congress and to once again legislate women’s bodies is a continuation of the death knoll for communities…and, for that matter, the planet. Does anyone have the stamina and the guts to really look into both biological oprigins and social origins of a problem that is higher in modern times that ever. It’s yet one of many symptoms of a illness we are ALL suffering from.
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I am so concerned to see this issue of HR20 showing up on a dialogue of health freedoms in this fashion. I am a midwife, a breastfeeding advocate, a holistic practitioner, an organic farmer and a feminist. I have supported women and their families suffering from perinatal mood disorders for more than 15 years. The only way we will honor and support women and mothers is to start hearing their stories and getting them the care they need. The postnatal depression screening is not used to take infants from their mothers. The resistance to this bill has been from doctors and medical establishments too concerned about liability to ask how mothers are doing and this bill will make providers pay attention and help women get the care they need. It does not give them any authority to even MAKE women get treatment, but makes care providers responsible to screen and provide referrals. The goal is to improve awareness and could ultimately support making funding available for needed services. By having more accurate information about perinatal mood disorders we can move forward on very promising research that social support, good nutrition, stress reduction, omega 3s, and a range of alternative therapies are impactful in helping women recover. We will build our base of research that shows that traumatic births, separating infants from their mothers, and other routine maternity care practices impact the biochemistry of new mothers, putting them at risk for mood disorders. This bill can play a small role in taking the shame out of this, and allow women to be identified and supported. 50 % of women who are suffering will be not be identified by ‘clinical observation’ from their health care providers. I am teaching next week to home birth midwives on the topic of how women under our care will suffer if we don’t pay attention and ask them about their wellbeing. This bill is about asking women about their wellbeing. I have worked with hundreds of women with perinatal mood disorders (actually more than a 1,000) and never have I seen any involvement of social services to remove infants or children. Your alarmist posts are going to make more women hide in the shadows. Please consider offering a balanced critique without making more women fear that the way they feel when they need support is putting them at risk for losing their infants. Taking a postnatal depression screen will not violate your parenting rights.
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Look the the skies and be watching for your redemption. The things going on in the world, like this, all play a part of what this world is coming to for it’s final days.
These days, I am seeing Revelation is the most interesting book I have ever read.
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Stand up for mental health treatment. It exists in the ‘best’ of families.
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This is truly an invasion of personal rights. As an OB nurse & Midwife I assess each mother/family and offer assistance or resources to those families who may have problems adjusting to a new baby. The threat of taking away a child will drive families away from centers of safe care.
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As a nutrition consultant and a mother of 3 who had postpartum depression about 30 years ago I now understand the cause. It was essential fat deficiency. The baby takes all the EFA’s for it’s brain and the mother is left depleted. I understand wanting to protect infants. How about testing for essential fat levels in a new mother’s blood? Mandating fish oil supplements/prenatal vitamins and healthy eating support for new mothers would be a constructive, healthy and positive solution.
If a child is taken away from a parent he/she goes to whom? Is that place guaranteed to be healthier, happier, and safer??
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