Heaven only knows just what was going through the anguished mind of new mother Heather Finkill a couple of days ago. Her anguish was such that in the early hours of a freezing cold morning in Farnborough, Hampshire, Heather walked 400 yards from her home and onto the M3 Motorway, dressed only in her pyjamas, and straight in front of a truck. She was struck down and killed instantly. Of course her family are in deep shock, especially her husband, as Heather only two weeks ago gave birth to twin girls. Many people may ask just why she acted in this way, a seemingly deliberate way, when she should have been experiencing the joys of first time motherhood.
But how many of those ‘many people’ have experienced the lows that all too often cloud the life of a new mother? Speaking as a mum myself I can attest that those first few weeks can be a time of sheer happiness, or sheer hell. Post Natal Depression, or PND, is a condition that attacks a woman at her most vulnerable time. It is indiscriminate as to who it strikes; first time Mums like Heather, or a woman with several children…we are all liable to suffer this condition.
Experts are researching this subject but are still to find exactly why women come out of hospital and then kill themselves, and sometimes their baby as well. They can describe the symptoms and even prescribe anti-depressants – which often help – but the actual sufferer just cannot adequately describe the hell they are going through. People say things like ‘snap out of it’…if only it were that easy.
New mothers do not need loads of well wishers converging on their house just after arriving home from hospital, they do not need bunches of flowers or cards, they do not need to have look after friends, visitors and relatives (albeit well meaning one’s) at a time when the mother is the one who needs all the looking after. They need understanding, proper TLC, time to adjust, time to heal. A hug, a careful eye.
Heather Finkill may have had all that, but obviously even that was not enough. Lets hope that soon there will be a solution that will be ‘enough’.
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