FDA Approves First Oral Treatment for Postpartum Depression

Knowing how there is a much larger silent group who is reading and might disagree with you, or how your words will actually do harm to deny a mother what she may be going through.

It's up to you, but I hope you read the below with an open mind and eyes.

Isolation in a pandemic CAN make PPD worse.

The rates of PPD during the pandemic WERE much higher, and from what the data is saying more intense.

Imagine: Becoming a mother alone in a hospital room, without a single woman figure in the family who exists and would have been present otherwise is very easily a magnifier and amplifier of any conditions. Some mothers had to enter the hospital for weeks before birth alone from complications.

No visitors allowed, or only one. No support people allowed. Hospitals also had shut down most of the pre-natal and ante-partum programs and check-ins with dieticians, other parents to be, etc.

It was pretty much solitary confinement, and dismissal of it for those parents who went through it is pretty surprising since you seem to be an authority on what does or doesn't make PPD symptoms or experiences worse. It just kind of shows how out of touch your position might actually be.

So, onto the logical proof of explaining something that will only exist once science has studied it for your logical brain.

1) "Pandemic isolation is leading to more postpartum depression, anxiety. Everything that we tell postpartum women to do, like connect to other people, get out of the house, establish a routine, they can’t do that.”

https://www.today.com/parents/covid-19-pandemic-leads-more-p...

2) "A third of new moms had postpartum depression during early COVID.

People who delivered babies during the pandemic also reported more distress and anxiety. ... One in three new people who had babies in the beginning of the pandemic experienced postpartum depression – potentially triple pre-pandemic levels – while one in five had major depressive symptoms, according to research led by the University of Michigan School of Nursing and Michigan Medicine."

https://www.michiganmedicine.org/health-lab/third-new-moms-h...

3) "New moms, experts worry about postpartum depression during COVID-19 as services cut back Many in-person services now being offered by phone, video or have been cancelled altogether"

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/postpartum-depression...

4) "Women who lack social support after the birth of a baby are more likely to develop postpartum depression."

https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10...

5) "We believe the present study to be the first to demonstrate that fewer supportive persons during pregnancy is a predictor for postpartum depression. This finding points to the benefits of early intervention to increase the number of support providers for pregnant women19."

I hope this helps with undertaking a search yourself to learn more about PPD.

As an aside, it's questionable if there's a reason you feel it's acceptable to harshly dismissing the words of strangers as harshly as you might with your own inner dialogue? The world's eyes and ears are not a toilet for you.

As for support structures having nothing to do with PPD, I can only speak to what I've witnessed and what the doctors in our lives have pointed out.

Since you weren't there, and it might not exist for you unless you can understand it, it's pretty easy to search for topics on the internet these days.

I keep thinking about Michael Crichton. He transmorphed from reality-based to nutter. What happened? Religion wasn't a factor. So what radicalized him?

Historian Joanna Radin's theory, paraphrasing, is that Crichton's full faith and trust in The System was so completely shattered, by the Vietnam War and other outrages, that he completely flipped.

The Speculative Present - How Michael Crichton Colonized the Future of Science and Technology https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.1086/704047

The theme of the second season of Jill Lepore's The Last Archive podcast is about skepticism ("What fed Doubt?") S01E06 "It Came From Outer Space" includes the example of Crichton's radicalization.

https://www.thelastarchive.com/season-2-episodes

Lepore has completely opened up my mind about anti-science, conspiracy, and other social pathogens. Made me a bit more empathetic.

Highest recommendation.

Turkeys, llamas, ducks, mink, ostrich, etc.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domesticated_animals

Anyway it sounds like you're referring to Francis Galton's old take on the topic which doesn't really hold up in many ways https://galton.org/essays/1860-1869/galton-1865-domesticatio...

You haven't convinced me that there were no domesticable animals in the new world, or that that was the major factor.

It also doesn't explain why new world people already had a need penicillin formulations (earlier comment).

But if you are right, it sounds like the trade-offs that come with domestication may not be worth it except as accidental biological warfare. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15539148/

Also, the rats that carried the black plague were not domesticable. Don't you think open sewers in the streets contributed to disease a bit..

I'm currently on a psychiatrist prescribed drug which is illegal in Japan, which means I have to discontinue it before an upcoming trip. This is not a new drug, it's a generic.

So is it "insane that a group of educated and seemingly intelligent doctors" in the U.S. are prescribing this drug or "insane that a group of educated and seemingly intelligent doctors" at the Japanese equivilent to the FDA are not authorizing this drug?

I mean, it can't possibly be the case that neither group knows what it's doing, and that our scientific understanding of the brain is primitive, correct? One group has to be the insane one, right?

SSRIs and suicide risk remains controversial, habinero is describing one possible explanation and what I was taught in medical school over a decade ago. The label language is clear but you are failing to understand the complexity and rationale behind the warning and actual clinical implications. This is not unexpected as monographs are intended for a medical expert audience who are trained in their interpretation.

To keep it simple for everyone I suggest we defer to the Chair of the FDA proceedings that led to the boxed warning for his explanation as he is undoubtedly more of an expert than any of us on this matter (shortened for brevity):

It seems inconceivable that antidepressants would induce suicidality in the absence of other associated or antecedent behavioral changes. The essential message of the Black Box is to remind prescribers and consumers about the importance of monitoring closely for adverse behavioral changes during ... antidepressant therapy in order to reduce the risk of suicidality in patients through age 24 years. The intention was not to discourage appropriate prescribing of antidepressants for youth with depression, OCD or anxiety disorders.

In fact, some evidence .... suggested substantial reductions in antidepressant medication prescriptions in children and adolescents following the Black Box Warning ... For the majority of these patients, the benefits of antidepressants greatly outweigh the risks. Nevertheless, we agree ... that prescribers have a “duty to warn” and highlight the need for adequate training for all potential prescribers during medical school and residency programs.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.0036...

I will again note that for Zurzuvae the boxed warning was downgraded.

> Furthermore, subjects with suicidal ideations or attempts are disqualified from clinical trials.

https://www.nature.com/articles/npp2011247

https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.2...

I found these 2 pharmacotherapy RCTs on patients with suicidal ideation within 30 seconds of Googling.

> In practice, this also means that any subject with depression is disqualified and shall not participate in any clinical trial for "antidepressants".

> was never tested on anyone who was depressed?

How are you making this leap that none of the RCTs enrolled patients with depression? You do realize it's a minority that have suicidal ideation right?