I’m trying to find out about different treatment options when it comes to PP. please let me know if you were treated in the community and / or had a mixture of MBU support (a short stay) followed by care in the community. Please also let me know if you were sent an AMHP to see you at home when you initially started to have symptoms. I’m really keen to understand what alternative treatment I could have received rather than being sectioned and transported against my will to a mother and baby unit (which only perpetuated my symptoms of feeling unsafe).
many thank
Written by
MsBeau
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Hope you’re ok and you’ve had a good day. APP has undertaken various pieces of research over the years collaborating with the experts in the field of treatment for Postpartum Psychosis.
You can read lots about the recommended treatment on our website (link below).
I know for me, personally, experiencing PP was hugely traumatic and I think whichever treatment route I’d have ended up down - I would have experienced the same impact and trauma. As would my family. My mind / me lost somewhere completely, temporarily yes, and with the support I did get better.
We know that PP should be treated as a medical emergency as the symptoms can change rapidly. I personally feel hugely grateful that action was taken so swiftly, my family not waiting to see if I’d get better, or if another sleeping tablet might just help me sleep at home. A 999 phone call to the emergency services in desperation was absolutely the right thing for me personally, as was an admission to the MBU. It doesn’t bare thinking about how very different things might have been, had that phone call to 999 not been made.
I’m so sorry to hear that you feel the treatment you received however, only perpetuated your symptoms. I can imagine that feeling to be very difficult to then understand the treatment you received and the rationale behind it.
What I do know from personal experience is that PP is fraught with many complications in terms of post the acute illness; trying to comprehend what had happened. I know for me, it took several years to maybe find a way of “making sense of”, “coming to terms with”, and even maybe finding a bit of peace with what had so sadly happened to me and our family.
Take a look at our webpage as I say, which details treatment and support. Do take care reading and please do get in touch again if we can help you further.
I think it is pretty standard to be hospitalised for PP treatment. The few people I know who had PP besides myself were all in an MBU.
Like you, I was sectioned even though I do not believe I was a danger to myself or others, meaning I did not have selfharm ideation nor did I think about harming my baby. However, psychosis is a very serious condition and health workers need to start from the assumption that we may harm someone, including ourselves. No matter how small that chance is, it is there. The psychosis could escalate very rapidly; it can be very unpredictable.
Even if you are not violent in any way, there is still the possibility you could harm yourself. I know I was very confused, and before I was sectioned, while I was alone on the street, I crossed the road without looking and was almost hit by a car.
Even though I hated being sectioned, and being in the hospital with so many different staff added to my paranoia and confusion, it was unfortunately the only thing that could have been done.
In general, medicine operates with the principle "better safe than sorry", and sometimes use this principle to justify over-intervention, even though I believe this can cause more harm than good. Unfortunately it is a difficult balance, and in terms of psychosis, it is even harder. For example, you could be concealing your thoughts about hurting your baby, and even though that outcome is rare, it is something that must be avoided at all costs.
I do agree that being sectioned is not something that should be done lightly. And even though it was the right thing to do in my case, it might not have been in yours.
I am sorry about what happened to you, and I hope you can one day find peace with your experience.
Thanks so much for your message. I do hear what you’re saying about the risks involved with PP, but I don’t understand how sectioning someone and stripping them of their liberty removes the risk of something happening. Nobody told me formally that I’d been sectioned, no on read me my rights and because I’d been sectioned I had to be transported in a bus to the MBU rather than my family being allowed to drop me off. It just added so much to the trauma and a delusion that I was being trafficked started after I was taken in the middle of the night in the bus. By a group of very large and scary looking men, only the one female who was very judgmental of me, so I didn’t warm to her. When I was dropped off in my room, one of the bus drivers gave me a fist pump…!!!! I was honestly in shock when he did that. I seriously felt like no body had a clue what I was going through…
In my case, I shouldn’t have been sectioned. I was early on in my psychosis, and hadn’t become fully delusional yet (until I was mistreated so badly at A&E) and I had even packed a suitcase and taken it with me to the hospital, I wanted and needed help that badly. And I recognised that I needed help and even agreed to go to the MBU! Sectioning someone that is agreeable to admission is an abuse of the Act in my opinion. It should only be a last resort when they can’t persuade the person to accept treatment any other way.
It just felt like a witch hunt. And I wasn’t even interviewed by the AMHP, he spoke to my parents only so basically sectioned me based on collateral information, which I’m pretty sure is illegal!!!
That that sounds highly against protocol. Let us know the outcome of your complaints, and hopefully the field or the people involved in your case learn from this.
A blanket sectioning for PP should not be the way to act, and cases should be assessed individually.
I have had an apology from the mother and baby unit for them allowing my Dad onto the ward. They’ve acknowledge they did nothing to act on the safeguarding disclosure that I’d made. I feel like a slight weight has finally been lifted off my shoulders !
I'm Jenny, one of the peer support coordinators at APP. I just wanted to write and say I'm sorry to read about your experience of being sectioned and the impact this has had on you.
I had PP in 2012. I was admitted to an MBU voluntarily so don't have experience of being sectioned, though I know a lot of women with PP are admitted under a section. I remember being lucid enough to agree to go to the MBU, although I didn't really understand what an MBU was (at the time I just thought if someone could observe me for a day and tell me I was 'doing everything right', I'd be fine) - I tipped into full psychosis not long afterwards so am sure I would have needed to be sectioned if I'd not already agreed to go.
It sounds like it would be helpful for you to understand the process the hospital went through in your case, and I hope that by challenging this as you are doing, and via the mediation you have requested, this will be possible and will bring you some peace. I'm sure your story will be very powerful when the Trust hopefully looks at any learning from this. I previously worked in an NHS commissioning organisation and they would share patient stories at the Trust Board meetings, I think this was probably the most important and impactful part of the agenda.
I do understand the anger you are feeling and hope there are some positives that can come from this for future patients in a similar situation. I hope, too, that sharing experiences and connecting with others here is helpful in this journey of recovery we all travel down 💜
Take good care and know we're always here to listen.
I’m sorry for the late response to your message but I saw it and had to respond.
I was diagnosed with PP in December 23, two months after my son was born. I was not sent to MBU, I was hospitalised for two days then discharged and had daily visits from the crisis team which was given to me as an alternative to the MBU for a few months. I then have been with the perinatal team and a care co ordinator for the last year. My hallucinations stopped very quickly after medication.
Thanks so much Holly. What kind of hospital were you in for the two days if you don’t mind me asking? Was it a general psych ward or the main general hospital? I’m trying to establish that I could have been treated at home, as well, maybe after a few days of rest at the general hospital. But I wasn’t given a proper mental health assessment so they’ve no idea how I was even presenting!
It was a mental health unit within a general hospital - I don’t know if they have a psych ward as it was my parents local hospital not my own. I think if I was in my borough then things might have been different. I think there are pros and cons to the MBU and being treated at home - it took a few months to get therapy etc. I hope this helps!
so so helpful thank you! Finally a treatment option that could have worked if I’d only been given the option. All that happened was they sectioned me and then sent me away in the middle of the night which only traumatised me more!
I think it is important to gain clarity in case of unreasonable behaviour and unfair treatment for decission making of volunteered or forced sectioning and during stay. I do not know exactly about legal procedures, but know that too much went wrong in my case when sectioned into a mixed gender hospital. The question is why do we want to delve into the truth, what are we hoping to achieve? Over the years I decided against a legal battle, but try to use my lived experiences in order to improve the system.
Below just some of the aspects when being sectioned in 2010
- a place without reasonable safe guarding issues and 6 suicides in one year
- suffering physical and verbal abuse by male patients
- receiving shoulder injuries(long term damage) , because of members of staff not having sufficient training in how to restrain
- being kept in isolation over 70% of my stay
- no gynaecological support, despite having had a baby 2 weeks before
and so much more...I have read my medical file of the hospital...some of the truth never will come out, as written reports by different health professional/members of staff are contradicting.
I was asked by another APP staff to become part of a stake holder group in 2018 to contribute to develop "a new build MBU" in Exeter at the time. Mums and their families with lived experiences helped with the exterior and interior design. After this 2 year project I visited the finished building and even helped with the interview processes of new staff. I cried a lot when walking though the building and it brought some sort of closure to my broken heart, knowing that mums and babies will be together and be in an environment of appropriate professionals, who are experts in post natal care.
I am open to you, because I feel your pain and everybody is so different in the way how to process such a traumatising experience. My partner is suffering right now, because when the lid is full our horrible experience affects our life. There are different types of PTS, which I read up on. It is realy important to make sure you are doing fine with your MH when tackling those sore lived experiences.
Wishing you health and happiness.
additional info, maybe useful to those, who read my response...therapy and therapeutic tools are so important for our MH
Figuring out what type of trauma applies is useful:
One-time acute trauma from a single incident
Chronic trauma from repeated and prolonged stressors
Complex trauma stemming from exposure to multiple traumatic events
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