I heartily agree with Barbara Wilson Clay!
OK, I'm coming out of the closet as a mother and an LC with OCD! I hope
this confession will not be a mistake.
OCD is NOT primarily a behavioral problem. The "root" of it is not
something that happened to one as a child or a traumatic event. It is most
likely, a hereditary, neurological, brain chemical related illness. It can
no better be "cured" with behavioral therapy alone than diabetes can be!
Prozac may be problematic during lactation, but many of the other SSRIs
have been found to be safe and effective for OCD and depression.
Read "The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Washing" by Julia Rappaport.(I think her
first name is Julia, I know her last name is Rappaport.) It is an excellent
book on the subject that will clear up many misconceptions about OCD (pp
with OCD "wash" all the time, they had traumatic childhoods, they can be
cured with behavioral or dietary "therapies" ect.)
I get so angry when I see grossly distorted and just plain wrong
misinformation about a condition that we DO know a lot about. Much of the
misonformation about OCD is gathered from books that either have a $$
interest in scaring people away from helpful medicines (the Church of
Sc****logy as one) or is based on ancient, Freudian, long disproven
theories. OCD is no less a physical illness than diabetes or a broken leg.
No one would tell someone with a broken bone that casts are "dangerous" and
that the leg could better be healed by talking about it and finding out the
"root" of how it was broken than setting the bone!
MOST meds are safe during breastfeeding, (ask Dr. Jack or Dr. Hale!)
including many of the SSRIs. Let's not go back to the Dark Ages when all
drugs were suspect and women were afraid to seek treatment because they
were given the poor info that ANY drugs would somehow harm their babies.
There are thousands of people with OCD who endured YEARS, sometimes decades
of "behavioral" therapy and psychoanalysis to get to the "root" of their
problem and yet never had a single break in symptoms. Many of these people
got relief within a few weeks of SSRI treatment. (this LC included)
Psychological treatment can be a helpful adjunct to drug treatment to help
an OCD sufferer deal with her symptoms, but without the reversion to normal
brain chemistry that the SSRIs provide, most never have more than mimimal
relief from their symptoms. SSRIs are NOT "happy pills" if your brain
chemistry is already normal, they will not make one "happy" or high. If
one's neurochemistry is abnormal, as in OCD, these drugs can help correct a
defect and help one live a normal, successful life.
I never worried about how many ounces my babies were getting, I never
obsessively washed my hands, I never pumped to "see" how much milk was
there, my OCD had little effect on my ability to care for my babies and NO
effect on my ability or confidence in my ability to breastfeed my
children.(Although I did make sure the labels on my Curity cloth diapers
were all facing the same way, never knew an other OCD sufferer who did
that!) Some of the rather cartoonish characterizations about what some
believe ALL OCDs sufferers are like have disturbed me a little. Knowing or
working with one of only a few OCD sufferers cannot give one the full
spectrum of symptoms and coping tecniques of ALL sufferers. One sufferer's
world may be a great deal different than most others. Many of us had the
condition for years and no one around us had any idea.
Currently nursing 20 month old while taking an SSRI. Normal healthy baby
and healthy, happy mama, too. I certianly wouldn't be happy or coping as
well without the SSRIs.
I have not meant to offend my this post, only enlighten. I hope those who
know me will not have their opinion of my work or my mothering changed by
my confession.
Mary
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