She’s 33, a radio host and home-schooling mom. From her Everett home, she runs a business dealing in baby items. As much as any mother of three boys can, Maya Mowilos has it all together.
Four years ago, she was struggling.
After the birth of her twin boys in 2003, what should have been a joyous time plunged Mowilos into unfamiliar despair. She’d been through new motherhood. When the twins were born, her first son was 8. This time was different.
After her twins’ birth at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, Mowilos remembers thinking, “What do I do?”
Some mothers affected by postpartum depression feel severely detached from their babies. Among the more well-known women affected by the disorder was Brooke Shields. The actress chronicled her deep sadness and pain following her daughter’s birth in the book “Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression.”
Rather than detachment, Mowilos said she was wracked by irrational fear. She was paralyzed by thoughts that something would happen to her babies. “With me, it was over-attachment.” She later took part in a UW study focusing on how medical professionals respond to women with postpartum depression.
“I was very lucky,” Mowilos said. “In the multiples unit at UW, a social worker recognized what I was going through and intervened.”
Mowilos was assisted through a nonprofit organization, Postpartum Support International of Washington, www.ppmd support.com. Part of a broader national group, the organization offers a 24-hour phone line for help, drop-in support groups and resources including doctors with expertise in postpartum mood disorder and doulas, assistants who come into homes to help new mothers.
Mowilos’ salvation was the in-home help of doulas, provided partly by Postpartum Support International and partly through family gifts.
“I know it saved me,” Mowilos said. “It wasn’t so much supervision as connecting in an emotional way. They’d say, ‘Let me hold that baby.’ ” After a two-year journey to regain health and confidence, Mowilos vowed to give back.
A volunteer show host at KSER 90.7 FM, the Everett-based community radio station, Mowilos helped with the postpartum group’s Web site. This weekend, she’ll use her musical connections to boost her contribution through a benefit concert.
The event, dubbed Mama Rising, is scheduled for 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday at Wired and Unplugged Coffeehouse, 717 First St. in Snohomish. Proceeds will help both Postpartum Support International of Washington and KSER.
Among the performers will be Peter Ali, Rae Parks, Real Folk, Sean McGrath, Hanale, Rob Sandelin, Joe Goins, Laughing Women Belly Dancing, Allison Preisinger and John Leonardson. Some of those artists are heard during shows Mowilos hosts on KSER. “Starlit Skies,” from 8 to 10 p.m. Mondays, featuring New Age music. Mowilos also hosts KSER’s “Sunlit Room” music show from 10 a.m. to noon Thursdays.
In learning about postpartum mental health issues, Mowilos said she discovered that a mother’s “natural down time” following birth can progress dangerously to postpartum depression and to the extreme of postpartum psychosis.
Who can forget the shocking story of Andrea Yates, the Texas woman who drowned her five children in 2001? She was convicted of first-degree murder in 2002, but her conviction was overturned. A Texas jury later found her not guilty by reason of insanity. The case shined a light on postpartum depression even as lawyers argued over Yates’ responsibility for the tragedy.
Recently, Congress has paid attention to the issue once hidden behind closed doors. Monday, on a 382-3 vote, the House passed the Melanie Blocker-Stokes Postpartum Depression Research and Care Act, sponsored by Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill. The bill was introduced in 2001 after the suicide death of a Chicago woman afflicted by postpartum psychosis. She left behind a daughter and a husband.
The bill, now going to the Senate, includes money for research, screening and a public awareness campaign.
According to Postpartum Support International, from 15 percent to 20 percent of new mothers suffer from depression or anxiety, with panic disorder or psychosis striking a far smaller percentage.
Next week, my youngest child has a birthday. He was born in 1998. I remember being on maternity leave that fall and early winter, a season so dark it set records for rain. With my older kids at school and the baby asleep, I spent hours doing nothing but watching televised impeachment hearings of President Clinton.
Those blues lifted, and I was fine. My baby was fine. Other moms need real help.
“It’s not just the baby blues,” Mowilos said. “It’s depression.”
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
