July 14, 2026 • 46 mins
Most new moms get the baby blues soon after giving birth. Postpartum depression is something much different - the symptoms are similar, but their intensity can have sweeping effects on mom, baby, and the whole family. Fortunately, it’s highly treatable but the catch is moms usually have to ask for help.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you
should Know. The Bummer Edition. Man, we're hoping to shine
a light on something to help people out.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
That's right, the edition. You know how we do these
playlist once a quarter now, which, by the way, I
hope people are enjoying those, sort of collecting things in
groups and releasing them once a quarter in groups of
ten or twelve. I thought it was kind of a
fun idea and we've been enjoying it. But maybe one
day something we can bucket is just really sad, joke
(00:46):
free episodes that we feel like are almost like a
public service announcement.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
We just call them Bummer Episodes.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
You need to hear, right, I think that's a great title.
Let's do that. We have enough for sure.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, I mean this would definitely be one of them,
because we're talking about postpartum depression and sort of the
general bucket of post and even pre natal and during
natal troubles that women go through because there are, you know,
several subcategories that they kind of place under postpartum depression.
(01:23):
But it is a real serious thing that affects you know,
I saw ten to fifteen percent. I think Dave helped
us with this, and he said one in eight, which
is about twelve percent of women experience this. And it's
one of those things that is not talked about enough
to where it seems like the numbers could be higher
because people are still ashamed to admit this kind of
(01:46):
thing happens.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, there is a definite stigma on this, to varying
degrees depending on your culture, ethnic group. Yeah, but basically
across the board, you're going to find a stigma against
a new mother who can't get it together for her baby.
That's kind of like what people sometimes look at it as.
(02:10):
And if you were basically being looked at like that
and you're already down on yourself because you're not performing
perfectly to your own standards or whatever that heaped on
top of it, you're probably not gonna be like everybody,
I need help. You're gonna just kind of dig in
and just keep trying to go. And that is the
exact opposite of what you're supposed to do with any
(02:32):
of what are called maternal mental health issues. There's a
whole umbrella term. It's not just postpartum depression or perinatal depression.
There's a bunch of other ones we'll talk about a
little bit too, but all of them add up to
you got to ask for help. You also have to
be on the lookout for needing to offer help to
(02:53):
the new mother too, if you're the father or a
family member or a friend or something.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, it's a brutal situation where I mean, giving birth
is a you know, it can be a very wonderful,
joyous thing, but no matter how you slice it, it's
it's a very big sort of and traumatic doesn't always
necessarily I think mean something awful, but just such a
big life event that then you're then expected like and
(03:21):
now it's supposed to be the best thing ever, and
you're gonna be the happiest you've ever been immediately despite
these huge hormonal swings, right, and you're gonna be a
perfect mom. You're gonna be such a great mom. You're
gonna be a perfect mom. It's just it's just so
much pressure, and so yeah, this is a bit of
a PSA for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
For sure. And hit you hit something on the nose,
the being perfect immediately. I mean, being perfect is too
high an expectation anyway. Nobody's perfect. But the idea that
you're just supposed to immediately click with your kid and
just now you're a perfect mom or a great mom
like that is not how it plays out very often,
(04:00):
I would guess most of the time. It day.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
It's a process exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So, like I said, postpartum depression or perry natal I'm
just gonna call it postpartum I basically don't know anybody
who's ever called it pery natal depression. Yeah, so we're
just gonna call it postpartum depression, with the caveat that
it doesn't just happen after birth. It can happen while
during the pregnancy as well.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Right, Yeah, and up to a year following birth as well.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
For sure. So again this falls under the umbrella term
of maternal mental health. There's also some others postpartum anxiety,
postpartum obsessive compulsive disorder. We'll talk about those a little
bit later. But when you put all of these things together,
you get a really bleak picture of mothers in the
(04:48):
United States, whereas the rest of the world is doing
better and better with maternal mental health. The US keeps
getting worse and worse, and I mean like a lot worse.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah. There was a CDC study that found that rates
of postpartum depression were seven times higher in twenty fifteen
than they were in two thousand and between twenty sixteen
and twenty twenty three, new moms reported nearly sixty five
percent increase of fair to poor mental health. It is,
oh man, it is the leading cause of death among
(05:23):
new mothers now in the United States, with suicide and
drug overdose accounting for twenty two percent of all postpartum
maternal deaths in the United States. So crazy, you know,
maternal death rates. You usually look at it as like,
you know, something tragic happened in the birth, like physically
or biologically. And in the United States, the leading cause
(05:43):
of death is suicide and drug overdoses.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, I mean, and this is the highest in the
developed world by far, and that increases the highest in
the developed world, right, So it's it's a crisis in
the United States. It's a crisis worldwide, but in the
United States it's like a five alarm fire apparently. Yeah,
(06:07):
I'd be really interested to know what the problem is,
what's behind those figures are underneath those figures same. You
think it's a the the the United States transition toward
the becoming the society from a Handmaid's tale.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, I'm hansome to do with it.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
So one of the other things about the postpartum depression
too that's really problematic is and you kind of touched
on this early on. I think something like half of
cases just go undiagnosed, in part because even doctors sometimes
are like, you'll be fine, just get over, just get
back in there, you know, give it the old college
(06:48):
try and families too, And I think that that self
inflicted stigma too that new mothers have.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, and you know it's it's one of the reasons
is because and you know, they have screw tools. Now,
there's one called the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale to determine
like when that line has crossed because the the baby
blues or the postpartum blues or something that happens a lot,
like maybe even most pregnancies, you end up for you know,
(07:18):
up to like a week or two having these hormonal
swings where there's like overlapsing symptoms with what ends up
being PPD. So that's why a lot of reason it
becomes undiagnosed is because people think like, well, this is
just the baby blues. I'm surfering from some sadness and
crying and because and feeling overwhelmed, certainly because this is
(07:39):
maybe my first time. Although I should point out that
postpartum is not limited to first birth at all, right,
it can happen with any like their third birth, the
third kid, fourth kid, whatever. But the overlap is so
great that a lot of times I think people are like, well,
it'll pass, it'll pass, it's just the baby blues. But
if it goes on for more than a week or two,
you're probably in PP territory.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, it's not that the postpartum depression is a like
a different thing than the baby blues. It's the severity
of the symptoms, the same symptoms and the duration of
those same symptoms that really differentiate it and make it
something that like you need help for, Like you need
to get professional help. It's not just going to go
(08:22):
away on its own, or if it does, it's going
to you're going to grind through years of it locally
unnecessarily because we didn't say this yet. It's very highly treatable.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Yeah, for sure, that's the good news, and we'll get
to that. But you know, some of those symptoms we
should list are loss of appetite, difficulty sleeping, feeling worthlessness
or maybe even guilt or shame, anxiety, panic, irritability, anger,
big time mood swings, difficulty with bonding with your baby,
(08:54):
and again are these can be the baby blues or
if they're super severe and go on long enough, like
you said, it develops into PPD. And it's the kind
of thing that can also start several weeks two a
month later, So you got to keep an eye out,
like if those first couple of weeks or like you're like,
oh man, I managed to dodge this, it also might
start later and that's okay. You just need to be aware, right.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
I said that there's other disorders under the umbrella of
maternal mental health issues, and another one is postpartum psychosis,
and it's essentially what it sounds like. The mental health
disorder can become so pronounced after birth that you may
suffer from delusions, You may become paranoid, you may be disoriented,
(09:44):
you may feel disassociated from the people around you or
the world itself or reality. And that is considered so
postpartum depression is something you need to seek help for.
Postpartum psychosis is considered a you immediately take a trip
to the er when you or the people around you
figure out that you are suffering from postpartum psychoasis. It's like,
(10:07):
get in the car, maybe you can throw on a
robe and just go to the er.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah, and it's very rare. We should say it's one
out of every one thousand berths. But they say that
because very sadly, about four point five percent of the
cases of that psychosis result in harm to the baby
and five percent result in suicide. And you know, if
you've ever seen some terrible news report about like a
(10:34):
mom that said, you know, God told me to drown
my baby, that's what we're talking about here. Because delusions
of grandeur, a lot of times religious in nature, obsessive
thoughts about harming you or harming your baby, extreme paranoia
like that kind of thing. That's that's what falls under
the postpartum psychosis spanner.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, And from researching postpartum psychosis, they found that there
are some additional risk factors. Seems like the number one
risk factor for developing it is if you have a history,
whether personal or familial, of bipolar disorder, and that if
you start having sleep loss that triggers abouts of mania,
(11:18):
that is a really big red flag that you are
at a great risk of going on to develop postpartum psychosis.
Meaning so sleep loss which you already are getting from
just having a new baby, but if that triggers mania,
that's a big red flag and that's probably what kicks
the whole thing off, is that loss of sleep. It's
(11:39):
like crazy important and it's nuts that evolution didn't take
that into account, like, oh, yeah, we need to make
sure everybody sleeps after this, stays awake for the next
two years because it'll drive people crazy, like that can
trigger that all of these maternal mental health issues.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, I mean that can be rough on a family.
We got very very lucky with Ruby and that she
was a pretty good sleeper from early on, but I've
heard some nightmare stories and it's really tough. Sleep is
so so important. I think another thing we didn't point
out was for the postpartum psychosis, it's almost always a
(12:18):
first time pregnancy too, which is differentiates it from postpartum
general postpartum depression. But you know, some similar risk factors
for regular PPD. If you have a history of depression
or anxiety, you're more likely. If you had a childhood
trauma that you experienced, if you underwent infertility treatment, you
(12:40):
may be more likely to if it's an unplanned pregnancy,
or if you're a low income mother, especially if you're
like literally living in poverty, they experience PPD at twice
the rate of higher income moms. And there are also
a couple of biological factors if you suffer from anemia
or hypothyroidism, and then it can be genetic. I think
(13:02):
depending on what study you've seen, us seen anywhere from
fourteen to thirty percent have like potentially a genetic factor,
like inheritable.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Oh really, I hadn't seen that at all. Let's talk
about postpartum er perinatal OCD and perinatal mood and anxiety
disorder real quick too. Okay, yeah, so POCD. This is
this to me sounds like the hardest to deal with,
because I think you're probably the least likely to step
(13:31):
forward and say I need some help. Everybody. But it's
obsessive compulsive disorder that develops way more quickly than typical
obsessive compulsive disorder, usually very shortly after birth or after
the baby's born, and it's you know, like ritual behaviors
(13:53):
like checking on the baby incessantly, worrying that the baby's
going to get contaminated with germs, and lots of intrusive
thoughts that can be super disturbing.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think it's a natural
tendency if you've, especially for a first time parent, to
have this new, seemingly very fragile, tender thing that you're
in charge of keeping alive. It's a pretty natural instinct,
I think to maybe think like, they're so small and
so fragile. So my dumb advice just as a parent,
(14:27):
is like they're they're more robust than you think, and
they're made to survive, and they're made to live generally speaking,
so you have that on your side. But I can
see how it's pretty easy for maybe someone to go
down this road of worrying about germs or checking on
the baby every like ten minutes in the middle of
(14:48):
the night, and to become sort of obsessive this. The
POCD can cross the line into some even unwanted sexual obsessions,
like mother apparently can have sexualized images flashing through their
mind while they're changing a diaper, which is just sort
of creates a cycle of you thinking like, what's wrong
(15:10):
with me? What's going on? I'm having this weird thing
flash through my head? Right, And in reality, that's all
it is, is just like asleep, or your hormones or
something just really unusual that flashed through your head. And
as an intrusive thought, it does not mean that that's
who you are or what or you're leading to some
(15:32):
awful outcome.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Right, And I think that's kind of worth saying again, Chuck,
because this is the kind of thing that you would
not who you're going to tell that to? Oh, and
having sexualized thoughts about our baby? Yeah, right, you're not
going to tell that to anybody. It's going to be
so tough to admit that. So you have to know
that it's not you. It is your hormones, it is
(15:53):
not you. You do you have not suddenly developed a
sexual attraction to infants or children, like, it's not you.
So if you're having thoughts like this, you're not alone.
It's actually more common than you would think, And like,
you can get treatment for this, and you should get
treatment for it, because you're probably really being hard on
yourself right now.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, and you know, and if you give into that thought,
then that's when you're maybe avoiding bathing your baby or
avoiding caring and holding for your baby. So it's a
tough thing to come forward and talk to people. So
that's why it's really great to have a great support
system of other moms, friends and families to people to
lean on, because I guarantee you, if you say the
(16:37):
weirdest thought you've had out loud in a group of
moms that will be a couple of them, then they
are like, I had the same thoughts, It's okay.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Right, yeah, yeah, hopefully you have a group like that
or confined one, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Then there's some postnatal mood and anxiety disorder, which essentially
is a really terrible positive feedback loop to where you
feel like you're not bonding with your baby well enough
or fast enough, and so you start to become anxious,
which the baby picks up on, and the baby becomes
distressed or less likely to connect with you or pay
(17:13):
attention to you, which makes it harder for you to
read the baby, which makes it less likely for you
to bond in any kind of quick fashion and it
just keeps going in this cycle.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah, for sure. And you know what, I want to
recommend a podcast because if you maybe you are a
little more isolated and you don't feel like you have
this or or if you just don't have this sort
of support system around you. Our old buddy Jesse Thorn,
who runs the Maximum Fund Network and co hosts with
Judge John Hodgman with our pal his wonderful wife, Teresa Is.
(17:48):
She's just the best. And I don't think they do
it anymore, but Teresa and biz Ellis had a show
called One Bad Mother. Oh yeah, I remember that for
a long time and I'm pretty sure they still but
they did it for many, many years, and One Bad
Mother was just a great outlet and support system for
just this kind of stuff. For you know, the message
(18:10):
was always like you're doing just fine, You're doing okay.
You think you're the worst, and you're really the best,
And like, you know, if you're having a hard time
and you're you feel like you're alone in this, like
turn on that podcast, like do something like that to
know that you're not alone out there.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Right and pour yourself a mega pine of wine and
treat yourself to the Bad Mom's Trilogy in one sitting.
That's right, So you want to take a break, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Let's take a break and we'll get into some statistics
about other communities and how they deal with this. All right, everyone,
(19:05):
we're back. We promise talk about statistics, and in this case,
there are some pretty stark racial disparities when it comes
to PPD as far as the incidents of occurrence and
very sadly treatment. Up to forty percent of black and
Latina moms suffer from PPD, which is about twice the
rate of non Hispanic white moms, and single black mothers
(19:29):
are six times more likely than the general population to
experience it, really sadly. Latino women and Black women are
fifty seven percent and forty one percent, respectively, less likely
to start treatment for PPD than white women.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Right, And there's a lot of reasons for why they're
less likely to start treatment. In part there's a stigma,
just like with any culture. I think in Latino culture
that stigma can be even stronger than white or Black culture.
But for say black women in particular, it can often
go undiagnosed because it doesn't present as the classic symptoms
(20:09):
that the embra scale is designed to detect rather than
depressive symptoms. Black mom might have irritability, self criticism, deep fatigue, insomnia.
These are not all necessarily shared by all new mothers,
and so it just the doctor just might miss it.
(20:30):
They might be like, hey, you're just agro stop being
I grow.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Right, you know, yeah, I think they came up with
a different a different scale just for black mothers, right.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah, the Jackson Hogue Phillips Contextualized Stress Measure, which next
time you have a party, give that out as a
party favor for guests.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah, for sure. But that's great that they were like, hey,
we have a we have a hole in our treatment
plan here as far as you've been diagnosing this in
black woms. Right, so they came up with their own scale,
which is awesome. Basically everybody, The American College of Obstetricians
and Gynecologists, the AMA, the American Academy of Pediatrics, everyone
(21:12):
says recommends that everybody should be screened for prenatal or sorry,
perinatal depression, But very sadly, less than twenty percent of
all women are screened for these mental health disorders, and
those numbers are a lot lower for women of color.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Right, So those are reasons why they might not actually
go seek out treatment for PPD. There's also reasons why
they're more likely to suffer from PPD in the first place,
and those seem to center on social determinants of health.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah, which is like.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Your environment, your income level, the amount of free time
you might even have to go see the doctor. All
of these things tend to be less than what a
white mother would experience, and all of them help increase
the likelihood of experiencing postpartum depression.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
So regardless Chuck, of whatever your ethnic or racial group,
there are essentially the same causes I mean, PPD, even
though it might manifest itself differently. Even though access to
help for PPD is different, those are all human made obstacles. Yeah,
the biological basis for it is the same in every case.
(22:29):
And essentially it's a combination of hormones and the stark,
raving horror that is becoming a new pit.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah for sure. Like we were saying, you're thrown into
this brand new thing where your first charge is like,
all right, keep this baby alive.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Oh I cannot imagine.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I mean I remember, and this is like I imagine
it's the same with adoption as with it just you know,
regular birth, but you know, all of and someone just
hands you a baby and the nurses see the look
on your face, and hopefully the nurses are all as
great as ours were, as they're just like, you're doing fine.
(23:11):
They told us. What I said was like, hey, these
babies are meant to stay alive. You're gonna be just fine.
Just feed them this way, and you're on the right
track by just getting food into their body. And so,
you know, like I said, you know, evolution has happened
in such a way where they want these babies to live.
(23:32):
So you've already got a bit of a head start,
but being bombarded by hormones and a change in hormones
is definitely something that's hard to deal with because your
body's bombarded with hormones because you're pregnant to help you,
you know, to help you be successfully pregnant and to
stay pregnant. And then immediately after, within like seventy two hours,
(23:53):
most of these hormones go back to their previous state,
and that's just a big break to throw on.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Yeah, it's pretty mean of evolution really to just be like,
here's all the stuff that you need to have a baby.
Now you don't have a baby anymore. Who cares about
you and your baby? Like, thanks for the ride, lady.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Right. They could have been like, well, let's just tap
these down, like very slowly of the course of six months.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yeah, what the hey, you know, I know I'm a
childless man, sis even, and I am offended by that.
I'm mad at natural selection for that. It's just totally unfair.
It's it's just unfair.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Well, what are some of these hormones. Let's talk about them.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Well, you got good old progesterone. Everybody knows that one.
That one won the Super Bowl last year.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
It helps you create your placenta that the baby's going
to I guess attached to I remember if I remember
my health classer math grade correctly.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
It also stimulates blood vessel growth, which helps get nutrients
and oxygen to the womb. Progesterone, it's like any hormone.
It's actually quite clever. We have a finite number of hormones,
not that many, actually, I'm not sure how many. But
they do so many different things, and they do so
many different things in combinations. It's just elegant and beautiful
(25:13):
the human body can be, except when the hormone levels
drop too quickly.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, for sure. There's also, of course estrogen that's going
to help the uters grow, contribute to fetal development. As
far as organs and things go, it's going to stimulate
that milk duct development. Relaxing is another one that's the
most chill of all. That's going to inhibit uterine contractions
until you need them to avoid premature birth. And then
(25:40):
it's going to do double duty and relax and soft
within the pelvic joints when you're preparing for birth. And
then finally we have oxytocin. They really shoot through the
roof at the beginning of labor to stimulate uterine contractions. Yeah.
And then again, like we said, within about seventy two
hours of birth, at least, estrogen and progesterone that had
(26:03):
increased tenfold just goes back to normal. Yeah, And these
huge hormonal swings are just tough to deal with. You know,
it's tough to know which way is up.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Okay, that's just the hormonal the biological aspect of it.
There's also the environmental aspect of it. The nurture version
that was nature. This is the nurture part, and having
a new baby comes along with all of a sudden
you have to stay at home with your new baby
and can't do anything. You aren't sleeping. I think that
(26:36):
that is like kind of overlooked by people who've never
had kids or underestimated. I think maybe who haven't had
kids that don't sleep very well. And then you also
have to nurse. You have been physically gone through the ringer,
taken through the ringer. Like, there's all sorts of different
(26:56):
things that come that are specific exclusively to just having
had a baby that combined with the hormones, they just
come together and at the very least give almost all
new mothers the baby blues, and then some moms postpartum depression,
postpartum mood and anxiety disorder, postpartum psychosis, postpartum MOSTCD.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, and you know, as far as the sleep thing goes,
even if you have like a great sleeper like we did,
you're still going to have disrupted sleep for a while
because you have to get up and feed that baby
in the middle of the night, and some people have
a really hard time going back to bed. So this
is when partners need to really really, really, really really
step up if you have a partner when you're having
(27:40):
a baby. Imagine, I can't imagine how tough this is
on your own, but yeah, step up, take feet in
the middle of the night feedings. Let that mom get
as much sleep as possible. And then they also say
sleep when the baby sleep. So embrace those naps all
day long. If like, your baby has a great nap
in the afternoon, so should you.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Right, don't like your mother in law, Well, if she's
willing to come over and watch the baby overnight, fake it.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, oh man, And we had a lot of help,
so like, because you know, my mom and Emily's mom,
we're both living here at the time, and so I
just really feel for people that don't have that kind
of help and feel like they're trapped at home. So
my other advice as a systad is to get out
in the world. You might think that your baby is
(28:28):
just a walking sickness bomb waiting to happen if they
go and breathe the world's air. Ye, but there's nothing
better than you can do for yourself and any baby
than to get out in the world as much as possible,
as soon as possible. Yeah, they'll be just fine.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Great advice, Chuck, you are just rolling with it today.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Well, I hope i've learned something.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I think you've learned a lot. Yeah, so, yes, you
have your hormone levels plummeting. That seems like a pretty
good answer to where postpartum depression comes from, right, Yeah,
But it turns out that they've zoomed in, they've gotten
even more granular. If you're like a C suite type
and have figured out that there's this one hormone in
(29:10):
particular that really seems to be largely responsible. It's not
the only one responsible for it, but it's a pretty
It got caught red handed with like a bag with
the dollar sign on it, wearing a black mask, kind
of skulking away.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
That's right, So what is it, Chuck? It is alo pregnanolone.
It's funny. Dave wrote this and he was like, good
luck pronouncing that, And Dave, Buddy, that one's pretty easy
compared to a lot of the stuff that we.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
See, for sure.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
But that is deletrious. That's a steroid naturally produced in
the brain, and it plays a couple of key roles
during pregnancy, and that it inhibits the release of b oxytocin,
which we already talked about to avoid premature labor, which
you don't want. It also protects the developing fetal brain
from all those stress hormones that mom has.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Right, Okay, so this is pretty great stuff. Unfortunately, just
like all the other hormones, it says, so long I've
done my thing, like within you know, a couple of
days of having given birth. So all of a sudden,
not only is this a hormonal change, this natural antidepressant
has suddenly just vanished on you. And this can really
(30:23):
seem to trigger postpyerum depression in a lot of women.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah for sure. So it's going to lower their anxiety
for a while while they're pregnant and boost a mother's mood,
and then after that baby is born when it crashes out,
it's probably feels akin to like going off in SSRI
or something.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
But quickly, Like I mean, whenever you go off of
medication like that, you're supposed to step it down, slowly,
keeper it off. This is like again nature just being
a total be ripping that stuff away from you, and
all of a sudden, you're just you just going cold
turkey off of this antidepress that you got used to
(31:06):
over nine months. Yeah, for sure, So, Chuck, one thing
that we've really been focusing on is the mom, and
the mom definitely suffers from post to part and depression,
but so can the baby as well.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yeah, for sure. Pregnant women with PPD are far more
likely to deliver a pre term baby or a baby
with low birth weight. So there can be a literal
like a physical outcome of postpartum depression for the baby.
And we talked earlier about black and Latino women experiencing
(31:40):
PPD at higher rates, so that also is going to
correlate over to birth outcomes because Black women are fifty
percent more likely to give pre term, to give birth
preterm than white women, and more than twice as likely
to have a baby with a low birth weight.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Right, This of course makes it even more pressure laden
for you to get it right right, so that also
can affect your ability to bond with your baby. And again,
as we saw with postpartum mood and anxiety disorder, that
can create a feedback cycle where you get more and
more anxious about it, more and more depressed about it,
(32:14):
and that that affects your bonding even further, which you
get more and more depressed and anxious about and that
affects your baby as well.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Yeah, for sure. Should we take a break.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah, there is one other thing I think before we
break to point out, and that is that if you
have postpartum depression, it doesn't mean that you don't want
to bond with your baby, like you are incapable of
bonding with your baby in the healthiest possible way. It's
not you, it's your biology and your environment.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Yeah. I thought you were about to say it's not you,
it's them. It's the baby.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
It's the baby's fault.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, he's just not that into you. All right. I'm
glad we could make a sort of a light joko
hooe that came across that way. And we will be
back right after this with treatment options because there's great
news on the horizon.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Okay, Chuck, So you said there's great news on the horizon,
and we're about to lay it on them all the
moms who are bawling and yelling and doing all the
things while they're listening to this episode. Treatment is quite viable.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
That's right. Standard treatment is what you might think. It's therapy.
Perhaps antidepressant medication, certainly CBT cognitive behavioral therapy we've talked
about a lot. Yeah, that has been proven to be
pretty effective for PPD and postpartum anxiety and everything. Yeah,
(33:59):
and everything in general. But in the case of CBT,
you know, you're identifying these triggers that seem very automatic,
these thought patterns that you think you can't help, and
you know, coach you through that and how to develop
a healthier way of responding to those things when they
do happen.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Right, God bless doctor Aaron T. Beck, the creator of CBT.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Yeah, for sure, there's also medication.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
We talked about alopregnanolone being discovered as like a main
culprit for postpartum depression. That led to some drugs being
expressly targeted to basically help that transition, so you don't
just go cold turkey, you kind of taper off of
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
And then there's also long been SSRIs prescribed like a
standard antidepressant, and that of course gives mom's pause, like
any kind of medication can give a lot of mom's
pause because they're like, I'm nursing, so what's that going
to do to the baby?
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah, for sure, they've studied this. The current sort of
wisdom on this is that they have been detected in
very very low levels, sometimes even undetectable levels, in breast milk.
There are rare reports of adverse effects on infants or
in infants, so that's where the science currently stands.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yes, I also saw that peroxetine and sertraline which is
seroxat and zoloft okay. They seem to be the preferred
antidepressants for nursing mothers because they have shorter half life
than other SSRIs and the pass to breast milk and
smaller amounts than other Ssriyes, So if SSRIs in general
(35:41):
are okay, these two are super okay according to the
medical establishment, not me because I'm not a doctor.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
That's right. And by the way, we did I think
two pretty good episodes on breastfeeding back in the day.
That was a two parter, right.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
We did one on bottle feeding and one on breastfeeding.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Right, Yeah, so feeding your baby, and you know, I
recommend you you do those and we got you know,
it's always when it's two dudes podcasting about this stuff
about lady stuff, we were always a little nervous and
we always get really good feedback. From women that say, like,
you guys did a really good job, and it's good
that you guys are out there, sort of not feeling
(36:21):
like it has to come from a woman's perspective. So
I hope we're doing this all justice, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
God, I hope so too.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
I think you're doing fine.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I think you're doing great.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
But I'm just another CIS dude.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
So if you want to target alo pregnant alone, there's
a drug called bre san alone yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
There's another one called Zura no loan yeah, and those
are the generic terms for them. The problem is, as
it stands right now, if you're paying out of pocket
with zero insurance, you're gonna pay thirty four grand for
one in the United States. I'm sure it's like ten
bucks in Canada, yeah, or fifteen grand for the other.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Shame shame, shame.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, hopefully if you have even passingly decent insurance in
the United States, like, you're not going to pay anything
even remotely like that. But yes, I think you should
say it again, chuck.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, still, even if enturance is covering it, shame, shame, shame, shame,
capital sham.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
E Good for you, buddy, And now here's an ad
for saran alone.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Oh man, you're managing to squeeze in some jokes. I
like that.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I like you.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
So can men get postpartum depression? The answer is yes,
that can happen. Apparently, between eight and ten percent of
new dads suffer from some kind of anxiety or depression
after the birth of a job, and it also may
be connected to hormones in some cases. It's usually later
than women might experience it, between three and six months later,
(38:01):
maybe up to a year later, but a lot of
the same you know issues, sleep issues, loss of appetite,
feeling overwhelmed, tired, sad, anxious, and also the same people
at risk if you're a younger dad, if you have
a history of depression, if you are struggling financially, or
if you're just having trouble in your marriage or relationship.
(38:22):
You know, you don't have to be married to have
a baby. We all know that, all right, All of
those same kind of risk factors.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Right, And there's also additional risk factors that dads customarily
have that new mom's necess don't necessarily and that's a
sense that's like the new mom is expected to be
a great mom and raise a great healthy well adjusted
baby right out of the box. The dad is expected
to really step it up and provide for his new family,
(38:49):
and that can often mean like, well, you're stuck here
in this job and you're now beholden to this employer
and like you may this that might not be the
great greatest feeling in the world for you right then,
And at the very least, it's additional pressure. So that
can also kick off postpartum depression in dad's which was
I think best expressed in the whamsong Everything she wants.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
That's right, and I hope this is clear. But to
be clear, we're not obviously talking about the old days
where like the man's got the job and the woman
doesn't work and isn't expected to. But you know, in
two income families, a lot of times when a mom
has a baby, they at the very least hopefully have
a great maternity leave kind of situation. If not, sometimes
(39:37):
they have to leave like whatever job and just not
get paid for a while. So there may be more
pressure on the second income earner to you know, kind
of make up for that loss or at least keep
the ship afloat till mom can get back to work.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah, and one of the I guess quirks of the
United States economy. I guess is that especially if you
if you have a two income house and there there
is not great maternal leave or paternal leave, both parents
have to go to work very soon after the birth,
(40:09):
they will have to put their kid in childcare. The
United States, unlike some other countries, does not have free childcare.
It is a paid problem, private business industry. And some
couples figure out that the cost of daycare is more
(40:30):
than say the mom or the dad would actually bring home,
and so in that sense it makes sense to just
for the mom or the dad to stay home whoever
has the lower income that daycare would exceed. That's nuts
that that happens to anybody, and it happens to a
decent amount, at least anecdotally.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yeah, for sure, day care is really really expensive, and
it's a it's a real shame because that can that
helps the family, that helps for outcomes for the in
their development. So my recommendation is to use your voice
at the voting booth and if there are candidates in
your local city or state or nationwide that believe in
(41:12):
the idea of free childcare, then speak with your vote.
That's all I'm going to say on that.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Okay, one other thing too, Chuck. It's not just environment.
Just like with postpartum depression in women, postpartum depression in
men also seems to have to do with hormones, because
men's hormones are the balance of hormones change during pregnancy
as well, which is pretty neat.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yeah, for sure, your testosterone is going to probably drop
during the pregnancy and continues to get lower after the
birth happens. And people think, you know, researchers think that
that's basically to keep tooktook at bay and to reduce
aggressive tendencies while you know, father infant bonding is happening, Like,
(42:00):
chill out, dad, you need to be gentler right now.
So we're gonna lower your.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Tea, right and also stick around and help raise the
kid rather than go look for your next conquest.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, man, I wonder if I should say this on
the air.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Well, we can edit it out.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
All right, We'll see. One of the funny things that
Emily has done lately is you know, you know, all
the in a stupid man of sphere world, like you know,
low tea beta male. Soy, that's another one. Like you're soy,
like because you eat soy instead of meat like a
man does. She will anytime I'm like, I don't know,
(42:40):
just being wishy washy about something, or what if she
feels like she just wants to kind of pokepun at me,
she she'll call me like a beta cook or ask
me if I have low tea, or like hey, soy,
come over here and help me with this thing. Oh
my gosh, it's very I mean, it always just brings
the house down between the two of us because it's
just such a dumb thing. Anyway, I like that she's
taken something from the manisphere and kind of twisted it
(43:01):
to use it in our own marriage as a comedy.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
I would love to be sitting on the couch someday
and heard do that to you, because yes, I would
so funny.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Yeah, I wait for Ruby to be like, what's a
beta cup?
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Right? Let's see? Oh yeah. Postpartum depression is also treatable
and dad, so if you think you have it, to
kelp because it's very treatable too.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Uh, you got anything else?
Speaker 1 (43:27):
I got nothing else? Man. I always feel like we're
on ice skates with these episodes.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
So I didn't feel like that about this one.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I always get a little nervous in how I speak
about this stuff. So I hope you did Okay, you
did great? Man, you did great?
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Well, then it sounds like we both did great.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
But I want moms to write in and say you
did great. I don't care what I think about you
and what you think about me anymore. We know we
love each other.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
All right, fair enough? Okay, Yeah, if you're a new
mom or an old mom or even never had kids,
it doesn't matter. We would love to hear from you
about this episode.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Yeah, and not just saying we're great, Like if we
fell short, let us know and we'll try and do
better and correct it.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Well. Put man, I'm glad you said that too, because yeah,
we sounded like a couple of I know, like please
make us feel better, right, a couple of cucks.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Beta cucks.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, since Chuck just laughed about beta cucks again, it's
so funny. That means it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
Soy is the one that really gets me.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Well, you know it's crazy as soy actually does raise
your estrogen levels and can give men many boobs.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Oh well, great, give it to me. I love it
all right. This is from Adam and Michigan. Hey, guys,
I'm a little more than disappointed that in the Three
Mile Island episode you fail to mention professional wrestler Adam Baum.
He was a popular wrestler in the nineteen eighties and
the WWF. He was billed as being from three Mile
Island and was in imposing six six two ninety well.
(44:55):
He had yellow con yellow contact lenses and a spinish
move was called the Adam Smasher. This is so great.
He was a rather imposing figure with a very creepy
theme song, and he made quite an impact. His real
name is Brian Clark. He's still alive and looks almost
like he did in the nineteen eighties. Adam from Michigan.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Nice. I had never heard of him, so thank you
for letting us know. Adam.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
You hadn't heard of him?
Speaker 1 (45:20):
No, I mean I didn't keep up with wrestling much.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
No, I didn't either, But it sounds like we were
missing out on a lot.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
But you know, we're just soy love and Beta Cux.
So what do we know.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
If you want to be like Adam and let us know? Wait,
is this from Adam Bomb himself.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
No, this is a d A.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
M oh okay. Well, there was an Adam Bomb who
was a DJ at album maybe eight. For a while,
he had like the Soul something show.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Oh wow, I bet I listened to it.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
It was really good. Well, anyway, thanks a lot Adam
from Michigan for letting us know about Adam Bomb. We
love that And if you want to get in touch
with us like Adam did, you can send us an
email to send it off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you
should Know. The Bummer Edition. Man, we're hoping to shine
a light on something to help people out.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
That's right, the edition. You know how we do these
playlist once a quarter now, which, by the way, I
hope people are enjoying those, sort of collecting things in
groups and releasing them once a quarter in groups of
ten or twelve. I thought it was kind of a
fun idea and we've been enjoying it. But maybe one
day something we can bucket is just really sad, joke
(00:46):
free episodes that we feel like are almost like a
public service announcement.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
We just call them Bummer Episodes.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
You need to hear, right, I think that's a great title.
Let's do that. We have enough for sure.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, I mean this would definitely be one of them,
because we're talking about postpartum depression and sort of the
general bucket of post and even pre natal and during
natal troubles that women go through because there are, you know,
several subcategories that they kind of place under postpartum depression.
(01:23):
But it is a real serious thing that affects you know,
I saw ten to fifteen percent. I think Dave helped
us with this, and he said one in eight, which
is about twelve percent of women experience this. And it's
one of those things that is not talked about enough
to where it seems like the numbers could be higher
because people are still ashamed to admit this kind of
(01:46):
thing happens.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, there is a definite stigma on this, to varying
degrees depending on your culture, ethnic group. Yeah, but basically
across the board, you're going to find a stigma against
a new mother who can't get it together for her baby.
That's kind of like what people sometimes look at it as.
(02:10):
And if you were basically being looked at like that
and you're already down on yourself because you're not performing
perfectly to your own standards or whatever that heaped on
top of it, you're probably not gonna be like everybody,
I need help. You're gonna just kind of dig in
and just keep trying to go. And that is the
exact opposite of what you're supposed to do with any
(02:32):
of what are called maternal mental health issues. There's a
whole umbrella term. It's not just postpartum depression or perinatal depression.
There's a bunch of other ones we'll talk about a
little bit too, but all of them add up to
you got to ask for help. You also have to
be on the lookout for needing to offer help to
(02:53):
the new mother too, if you're the father or a
family member or a friend or something.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, it's a brutal situation where I mean, giving birth
is a you know, it can be a very wonderful,
joyous thing, but no matter how you slice it, it's
it's a very big sort of and traumatic doesn't always
necessarily I think mean something awful, but just such a
big life event that then you're then expected like and
(03:21):
now it's supposed to be the best thing ever, and
you're gonna be the happiest you've ever been immediately despite
these huge hormonal swings, right, and you're gonna be a
perfect mom. You're gonna be such a great mom. You're
gonna be a perfect mom. It's just it's just so
much pressure, and so yeah, this is a bit of
a PSA for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
For sure. And hit you hit something on the nose,
the being perfect immediately. I mean, being perfect is too
high an expectation anyway. Nobody's perfect. But the idea that
you're just supposed to immediately click with your kid and
just now you're a perfect mom or a great mom
like that is not how it plays out very often,
(04:00):
I would guess most of the time. It day.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
It's a process exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
So, like I said, postpartum depression or perry natal I'm
just gonna call it postpartum I basically don't know anybody
who's ever called it pery natal depression. Yeah, so we're
just gonna call it postpartum depression, with the caveat that
it doesn't just happen after birth. It can happen while
during the pregnancy as well.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Right, Yeah, and up to a year following birth as well.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
For sure. So again this falls under the umbrella term
of maternal mental health. There's also some others postpartum anxiety,
postpartum obsessive compulsive disorder. We'll talk about those a little
bit later. But when you put all of these things together,
you get a really bleak picture of mothers in the
(04:48):
United States, whereas the rest of the world is doing
better and better with maternal mental health. The US keeps
getting worse and worse, and I mean like a lot worse.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah. There was a CDC study that found that rates
of postpartum depression were seven times higher in twenty fifteen
than they were in two thousand and between twenty sixteen
and twenty twenty three, new moms reported nearly sixty five
percent increase of fair to poor mental health. It is,
oh man, it is the leading cause of death among
(05:23):
new mothers now in the United States, with suicide and
drug overdose accounting for twenty two percent of all postpartum
maternal deaths in the United States. So crazy, you know,
maternal death rates. You usually look at it as like,
you know, something tragic happened in the birth, like physically
or biologically. And in the United States, the leading cause
(05:43):
of death is suicide and drug overdoses.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, I mean, and this is the highest in the
developed world by far, and that increases the highest in
the developed world, right, So it's it's a crisis in
the United States. It's a crisis worldwide, but in the
United States it's like a five alarm fire apparently. Yeah,
(06:07):
I'd be really interested to know what the problem is,
what's behind those figures are underneath those figures same. You
think it's a the the the United States transition toward
the becoming the society from a Handmaid's tale.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, I'm hansome to do with it.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
So one of the other things about the postpartum depression
too that's really problematic is and you kind of touched
on this early on. I think something like half of
cases just go undiagnosed, in part because even doctors sometimes
are like, you'll be fine, just get over, just get
back in there, you know, give it the old college
(06:48):
try and families too, And I think that that self
inflicted stigma too that new mothers have.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, and you know it's it's one of the reasons
is because and you know, they have screw tools. Now,
there's one called the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale to determine
like when that line has crossed because the the baby
blues or the postpartum blues or something that happens a lot,
like maybe even most pregnancies, you end up for you know,
(07:18):
up to like a week or two having these hormonal
swings where there's like overlapsing symptoms with what ends up
being PPD. So that's why a lot of reason it
becomes undiagnosed is because people think like, well, this is
just the baby blues. I'm surfering from some sadness and
crying and because and feeling overwhelmed, certainly because this is
(07:39):
maybe my first time. Although I should point out that
postpartum is not limited to first birth at all, right,
it can happen with any like their third birth, the
third kid, fourth kid, whatever. But the overlap is so
great that a lot of times I think people are like, well,
it'll pass, it'll pass, it's just the baby blues. But
if it goes on for more than a week or two,
you're probably in PP territory.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, it's not that the postpartum depression is a like
a different thing than the baby blues. It's the severity
of the symptoms, the same symptoms and the duration of
those same symptoms that really differentiate it and make it
something that like you need help for, Like you need
to get professional help. It's not just going to go
(08:22):
away on its own, or if it does, it's going
to you're going to grind through years of it locally
unnecessarily because we didn't say this yet. It's very highly treatable.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Yeah, for sure, that's the good news, and we'll get
to that. But you know, some of those symptoms we
should list are loss of appetite, difficulty sleeping, feeling worthlessness
or maybe even guilt or shame, anxiety, panic, irritability, anger,
big time mood swings, difficulty with bonding with your baby,
(08:54):
and again are these can be the baby blues or
if they're super severe and go on long enough, like
you said, it develops into PPD. And it's the kind
of thing that can also start several weeks two a
month later, So you got to keep an eye out,
like if those first couple of weeks or like you're like,
oh man, I managed to dodge this, it also might
start later and that's okay. You just need to be aware, right.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
I said that there's other disorders under the umbrella of
maternal mental health issues, and another one is postpartum psychosis,
and it's essentially what it sounds like. The mental health
disorder can become so pronounced after birth that you may
suffer from delusions, You may become paranoid, you may be disoriented,
(09:44):
you may feel disassociated from the people around you or
the world itself or reality. And that is considered so
postpartum depression is something you need to seek help for.
Postpartum psychosis is considered a you immediately take a trip
to the er when you or the people around you
figure out that you are suffering from postpartum psychoasis. It's like,
(10:07):
get in the car, maybe you can throw on a
robe and just go to the er.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah, and it's very rare. We should say it's one
out of every one thousand berths. But they say that
because very sadly, about four point five percent of the
cases of that psychosis result in harm to the baby
and five percent result in suicide. And you know, if
you've ever seen some terrible news report about like a
(10:34):
mom that said, you know, God told me to drown
my baby, that's what we're talking about here. Because delusions
of grandeur, a lot of times religious in nature, obsessive
thoughts about harming you or harming your baby, extreme paranoia
like that kind of thing. That's that's what falls under
the postpartum psychosis spanner.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, And from researching postpartum psychosis, they found that there
are some additional risk factors. Seems like the number one
risk factor for developing it is if you have a history,
whether personal or familial, of bipolar disorder, and that if
you start having sleep loss that triggers abouts of mania,
(11:18):
that is a really big red flag that you are
at a great risk of going on to develop postpartum psychosis.
Meaning so sleep loss which you already are getting from
just having a new baby, but if that triggers mania,
that's a big red flag and that's probably what kicks
the whole thing off, is that loss of sleep. It's
(11:39):
like crazy important and it's nuts that evolution didn't take
that into account, like, oh, yeah, we need to make
sure everybody sleeps after this, stays awake for the next
two years because it'll drive people crazy, like that can
trigger that all of these maternal mental health issues.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yeah, I mean that can be rough on a family.
We got very very lucky with Ruby and that she
was a pretty good sleeper from early on, but I've
heard some nightmare stories and it's really tough. Sleep is
so so important. I think another thing we didn't point
out was for the postpartum psychosis, it's almost always a
(12:18):
first time pregnancy too, which is differentiates it from postpartum
general postpartum depression. But you know, some similar risk factors
for regular PPD. If you have a history of depression
or anxiety, you're more likely. If you had a childhood
trauma that you experienced, if you underwent infertility treatment, you
(12:40):
may be more likely to if it's an unplanned pregnancy,
or if you're a low income mother, especially if you're
like literally living in poverty, they experience PPD at twice
the rate of higher income moms. And there are also
a couple of biological factors if you suffer from anemia
or hypothyroidism, and then it can be genetic. I think
(13:02):
depending on what study you've seen, us seen anywhere from
fourteen to thirty percent have like potentially a genetic factor,
like inheritable.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Oh really, I hadn't seen that at all. Let's talk
about postpartum er perinatal OCD and perinatal mood and anxiety
disorder real quick too. Okay, yeah, so POCD. This is
this to me sounds like the hardest to deal with,
because I think you're probably the least likely to step
(13:31):
forward and say I need some help. Everybody. But it's
obsessive compulsive disorder that develops way more quickly than typical
obsessive compulsive disorder, usually very shortly after birth or after
the baby's born, and it's you know, like ritual behaviors
(13:53):
like checking on the baby incessantly, worrying that the baby's
going to get contaminated with germs, and lots of intrusive
thoughts that can be super disturbing.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think it's a natural
tendency if you've, especially for a first time parent, to
have this new, seemingly very fragile, tender thing that you're
in charge of keeping alive. It's a pretty natural instinct,
I think to maybe think like, they're so small and
so fragile. So my dumb advice just as a parent,
(14:27):
is like they're they're more robust than you think, and
they're made to survive, and they're made to live generally speaking,
so you have that on your side. But I can
see how it's pretty easy for maybe someone to go
down this road of worrying about germs or checking on
the baby every like ten minutes in the middle of
(14:48):
the night, and to become sort of obsessive this. The
POCD can cross the line into some even unwanted sexual obsessions,
like mother apparently can have sexualized images flashing through their
mind while they're changing a diaper, which is just sort
of creates a cycle of you thinking like, what's wrong
(15:10):
with me? What's going on? I'm having this weird thing
flash through my head? Right, And in reality, that's all
it is, is just like asleep, or your hormones or
something just really unusual that flashed through your head. And
as an intrusive thought, it does not mean that that's
who you are or what or you're leading to some
(15:32):
awful outcome.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Right, And I think that's kind of worth saying again, Chuck,
because this is the kind of thing that you would
not who you're going to tell that to? Oh, and
having sexualized thoughts about our baby? Yeah, right, you're not
going to tell that to anybody. It's going to be
so tough to admit that. So you have to know
that it's not you. It is your hormones, it is
(15:53):
not you. You do you have not suddenly developed a
sexual attraction to infants or children, like, it's not you.
So if you're having thoughts like this, you're not alone.
It's actually more common than you would think, And like,
you can get treatment for this, and you should get
treatment for it, because you're probably really being hard on
yourself right now.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, and you know, and if you give into that thought,
then that's when you're maybe avoiding bathing your baby or
avoiding caring and holding for your baby. So it's a
tough thing to come forward and talk to people. So
that's why it's really great to have a great support
system of other moms, friends and families to people to
lean on, because I guarantee you, if you say the
(16:37):
weirdest thought you've had out loud in a group of
moms that will be a couple of them, then they
are like, I had the same thoughts, It's okay.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Right, yeah, yeah, hopefully you have a group like that
or confined one, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Then there's some postnatal mood and anxiety disorder, which essentially
is a really terrible positive feedback loop to where you
feel like you're not bonding with your baby well enough
or fast enough, and so you start to become anxious,
which the baby picks up on, and the baby becomes
distressed or less likely to connect with you or pay
(17:13):
attention to you, which makes it harder for you to
read the baby, which makes it less likely for you
to bond in any kind of quick fashion and it
just keeps going in this cycle.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah, for sure. And you know what, I want to
recommend a podcast because if you maybe you are a
little more isolated and you don't feel like you have
this or or if you just don't have this sort
of support system around you. Our old buddy Jesse Thorn,
who runs the Maximum Fund Network and co hosts with
Judge John Hodgman with our pal his wonderful wife, Teresa Is.
(17:48):
She's just the best. And I don't think they do
it anymore, but Teresa and biz Ellis had a show
called One Bad Mother. Oh yeah, I remember that for
a long time and I'm pretty sure they still but
they did it for many, many years, and One Bad
Mother was just a great outlet and support system for
just this kind of stuff. For you know, the message
(18:10):
was always like you're doing just fine, You're doing okay.
You think you're the worst, and you're really the best,
And like, you know, if you're having a hard time
and you're you feel like you're alone in this, like
turn on that podcast, like do something like that to
know that you're not alone out there.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Right and pour yourself a mega pine of wine and
treat yourself to the Bad Mom's Trilogy in one sitting.
That's right, So you want to take a break, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Let's take a break and we'll get into some statistics
about other communities and how they deal with this. All right, everyone,
(19:05):
we're back. We promise talk about statistics, and in this case,
there are some pretty stark racial disparities when it comes
to PPD as far as the incidents of occurrence and
very sadly treatment. Up to forty percent of black and
Latina moms suffer from PPD, which is about twice the
rate of non Hispanic white moms, and single black mothers
(19:29):
are six times more likely than the general population to
experience it, really sadly. Latino women and Black women are
fifty seven percent and forty one percent, respectively, less likely
to start treatment for PPD than white women.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Right, And there's a lot of reasons for why they're
less likely to start treatment. In part there's a stigma,
just like with any culture. I think in Latino culture
that stigma can be even stronger than white or Black culture.
But for say black women in particular, it can often
go undiagnosed because it doesn't present as the classic symptoms
(20:09):
that the embra scale is designed to detect rather than
depressive symptoms. Black mom might have irritability, self criticism, deep fatigue, insomnia.
These are not all necessarily shared by all new mothers,
and so it just the doctor just might miss it.
(20:30):
They might be like, hey, you're just agro stop being
I grow.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Right, you know, yeah, I think they came up with
a different a different scale just for black mothers, right.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah, the Jackson Hogue Phillips Contextualized Stress Measure, which next
time you have a party, give that out as a
party favor for guests.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah, for sure. But that's great that they were like, hey,
we have a we have a hole in our treatment
plan here as far as you've been diagnosing this in
black woms. Right, so they came up with their own scale,
which is awesome. Basically everybody, The American College of Obstetricians
and Gynecologists, the AMA, the American Academy of Pediatrics, everyone
(21:12):
says recommends that everybody should be screened for prenatal or sorry,
perinatal depression, But very sadly, less than twenty percent of
all women are screened for these mental health disorders, and
those numbers are a lot lower for women of color.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Right, So those are reasons why they might not actually
go seek out treatment for PPD. There's also reasons why
they're more likely to suffer from PPD in the first place,
and those seem to center on social determinants of health.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah, which is like.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Your environment, your income level, the amount of free time
you might even have to go see the doctor. All
of these things tend to be less than what a
white mother would experience, and all of them help increase
the likelihood of experiencing postpartum depression.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
So regardless Chuck, of whatever your ethnic or racial group,
there are essentially the same causes I mean, PPD, even
though it might manifest itself differently. Even though access to
help for PPD is different, those are all human made obstacles. Yeah,
the biological basis for it is the same in every case.
(22:29):
And essentially it's a combination of hormones and the stark,
raving horror that is becoming a new pit.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah for sure. Like we were saying, you're thrown into
this brand new thing where your first charge is like,
all right, keep this baby alive.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Oh I cannot imagine.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I mean I remember, and this is like I imagine
it's the same with adoption as with it just you know,
regular birth, but you know, all of and someone just
hands you a baby and the nurses see the look
on your face, and hopefully the nurses are all as
great as ours were, as they're just like, you're doing fine.
(23:11):
They told us. What I said was like, hey, these
babies are meant to stay alive. You're gonna be just fine.
Just feed them this way, and you're on the right
track by just getting food into their body. And so,
you know, like I said, you know, evolution has happened
in such a way where they want these babies to live.
(23:32):
So you've already got a bit of a head start,
but being bombarded by hormones and a change in hormones
is definitely something that's hard to deal with because your
body's bombarded with hormones because you're pregnant to help you,
you know, to help you be successfully pregnant and to
stay pregnant. And then immediately after, within like seventy two hours,
(23:53):
most of these hormones go back to their previous state,
and that's just a big break to throw on.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Yeah, it's pretty mean of evolution really to just be like,
here's all the stuff that you need to have a baby.
Now you don't have a baby anymore. Who cares about
you and your baby? Like, thanks for the ride, lady.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Right. They could have been like, well, let's just tap
these down, like very slowly of the course of six months.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yeah, what the hey, you know, I know I'm a
childless man, sis even, and I am offended by that.
I'm mad at natural selection for that. It's just totally unfair.
It's it's just unfair.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Well, what are some of these hormones. Let's talk about them.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Well, you got good old progesterone. Everybody knows that one.
That one won the Super Bowl last year.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
It helps you create your placenta that the baby's going
to I guess attached to I remember if I remember
my health classer math grade correctly.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
It also stimulates blood vessel growth, which helps get nutrients
and oxygen to the womb. Progesterone, it's like any hormone.
It's actually quite clever. We have a finite number of hormones,
not that many, actually, I'm not sure how many. But
they do so many different things, and they do so
many different things in combinations. It's just elegant and beautiful
(25:13):
the human body can be, except when the hormone levels
drop too quickly.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Yeah, for sure. There's also, of course estrogen that's going
to help the uters grow, contribute to fetal development. As
far as organs and things go, it's going to stimulate
that milk duct development. Relaxing is another one that's the
most chill of all. That's going to inhibit uterine contractions
until you need them to avoid premature birth. And then
(25:40):
it's going to do double duty and relax and soft
within the pelvic joints when you're preparing for birth. And
then finally we have oxytocin. They really shoot through the
roof at the beginning of labor to stimulate uterine contractions. Yeah.
And then again, like we said, within about seventy two
hours of birth, at least, estrogen and progesterone that had
(26:03):
increased tenfold just goes back to normal. Yeah, And these
huge hormonal swings are just tough to deal with. You know,
it's tough to know which way is up.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Okay, that's just the hormonal the biological aspect of it.
There's also the environmental aspect of it. The nurture version
that was nature. This is the nurture part, and having
a new baby comes along with all of a sudden
you have to stay at home with your new baby
and can't do anything. You aren't sleeping. I think that
(26:36):
that is like kind of overlooked by people who've never
had kids or underestimated. I think maybe who haven't had
kids that don't sleep very well. And then you also
have to nurse. You have been physically gone through the ringer,
taken through the ringer. Like, there's all sorts of different
(26:56):
things that come that are specific exclusively to just having
had a baby that combined with the hormones, they just
come together and at the very least give almost all
new mothers the baby blues, and then some moms postpartum depression,
postpartum mood and anxiety disorder, postpartum psychosis, postpartum MOSTCD.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Yeah, and you know, as far as the sleep thing goes,
even if you have like a great sleeper like we did,
you're still going to have disrupted sleep for a while
because you have to get up and feed that baby
in the middle of the night, and some people have
a really hard time going back to bed. So this
is when partners need to really really, really, really really
step up if you have a partner when you're having
(27:40):
a baby. Imagine, I can't imagine how tough this is
on your own, but yeah, step up, take feet in
the middle of the night feedings. Let that mom get
as much sleep as possible. And then they also say
sleep when the baby sleep. So embrace those naps all
day long. If like, your baby has a great nap
in the afternoon, so should you.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Right, don't like your mother in law, Well, if she's
willing to come over and watch the baby overnight, fake it.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, oh man, And we had a lot of help,
so like, because you know, my mom and Emily's mom,
we're both living here at the time, and so I
just really feel for people that don't have that kind
of help and feel like they're trapped at home. So
my other advice as a systad is to get out
in the world. You might think that your baby is
(28:28):
just a walking sickness bomb waiting to happen if they
go and breathe the world's air. Ye, but there's nothing
better than you can do for yourself and any baby
than to get out in the world as much as possible,
as soon as possible. Yeah, they'll be just fine.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Great advice, Chuck, you are just rolling with it today.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Well, I hope i've learned something.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I think you've learned a lot. Yeah, so, yes, you
have your hormone levels plummeting. That seems like a pretty
good answer to where postpartum depression comes from, right, Yeah,
But it turns out that they've zoomed in, they've gotten
even more granular. If you're like a C suite type
and have figured out that there's this one hormone in
(29:10):
particular that really seems to be largely responsible. It's not
the only one responsible for it, but it's a pretty
It got caught red handed with like a bag with
the dollar sign on it, wearing a black mask, kind
of skulking away.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
That's right, So what is it, Chuck? It is alo pregnanolone.
It's funny. Dave wrote this and he was like, good
luck pronouncing that, And Dave, Buddy, that one's pretty easy
compared to a lot of the stuff that we.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
See, for sure.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
But that is deletrious. That's a steroid naturally produced in
the brain, and it plays a couple of key roles
during pregnancy, and that it inhibits the release of b oxytocin,
which we already talked about to avoid premature labor, which
you don't want. It also protects the developing fetal brain
from all those stress hormones that mom has.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Right, Okay, so this is pretty great stuff. Unfortunately, just
like all the other hormones, it says, so long I've
done my thing, like within you know, a couple of
days of having given birth. So all of a sudden,
not only is this a hormonal change, this natural antidepressant
has suddenly just vanished on you. And this can really
(30:23):
seem to trigger postpyerum depression in a lot of women.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah for sure. So it's going to lower their anxiety
for a while while they're pregnant and boost a mother's mood,
and then after that baby is born when it crashes out,
it's probably feels akin to like going off in SSRI
or something.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
But quickly, Like I mean, whenever you go off of
medication like that, you're supposed to step it down, slowly,
keeper it off. This is like again nature just being
a total be ripping that stuff away from you, and
all of a sudden, you're just you just going cold
turkey off of this antidepress that you got used to
(31:06):
over nine months. Yeah, for sure, So, Chuck, one thing
that we've really been focusing on is the mom, and
the mom definitely suffers from post to part and depression,
but so can the baby as well.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yeah, for sure. Pregnant women with PPD are far more
likely to deliver a pre term baby or a baby
with low birth weight. So there can be a literal
like a physical outcome of postpartum depression for the baby.
And we talked earlier about black and Latino women experiencing
(31:40):
PPD at higher rates, so that also is going to
correlate over to birth outcomes because Black women are fifty
percent more likely to give pre term, to give birth
preterm than white women, and more than twice as likely
to have a baby with a low birth weight.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Right, This of course makes it even more pressure laden
for you to get it right right, so that also
can affect your ability to bond with your baby. And again,
as we saw with postpartum mood and anxiety disorder, that
can create a feedback cycle where you get more and
more anxious about it, more and more depressed about it,
(32:14):
and that that affects your bonding even further, which you
get more and more depressed and anxious about and that
affects your baby as well.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Yeah, for sure. Should we take a break.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah, there is one other thing I think before we
break to point out, and that is that if you
have postpartum depression, it doesn't mean that you don't want
to bond with your baby, like you are incapable of
bonding with your baby in the healthiest possible way. It's
not you, it's your biology and your environment.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Yeah. I thought you were about to say it's not you,
it's them. It's the baby.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
It's the baby's fault.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, he's just not that into you. All right. I'm
glad we could make a sort of a light joko
hooe that came across that way. And we will be
back right after this with treatment options because there's great
news on the horizon.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Okay, Chuck, So you said there's great news on the horizon,
and we're about to lay it on them all the
moms who are bawling and yelling and doing all the
things while they're listening to this episode. Treatment is quite viable.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
That's right. Standard treatment is what you might think. It's therapy.
Perhaps antidepressant medication, certainly CBT cognitive behavioral therapy we've talked
about a lot. Yeah, that has been proven to be
pretty effective for PPD and postpartum anxiety and everything. Yeah,
(33:59):
and everything in general. But in the case of CBT,
you know, you're identifying these triggers that seem very automatic,
these thought patterns that you think you can't help, and
you know, coach you through that and how to develop
a healthier way of responding to those things when they
do happen.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Right, God bless doctor Aaron T. Beck, the creator of CBT.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Yeah, for sure, there's also medication.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
We talked about alopregnanolone being discovered as like a main
culprit for postpartum depression. That led to some drugs being
expressly targeted to basically help that transition, so you don't
just go cold turkey, you kind of taper off of
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
And then there's also long been SSRIs prescribed like a
standard antidepressant, and that of course gives mom's pause, like
any kind of medication can give a lot of mom's
pause because they're like, I'm nursing, so what's that going
to do to the baby?
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah, for sure, they've studied this. The current sort of
wisdom on this is that they have been detected in
very very low levels, sometimes even undetectable levels, in breast milk.
There are rare reports of adverse effects on infants or
in infants, so that's where the science currently stands.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yes, I also saw that peroxetine and sertraline which is
seroxat and zoloft okay. They seem to be the preferred
antidepressants for nursing mothers because they have shorter half life
than other SSRIs and the pass to breast milk and
smaller amounts than other Ssriyes, So if SSRIs in general
(35:41):
are okay, these two are super okay according to the
medical establishment, not me because I'm not a doctor.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
That's right. And by the way, we did I think
two pretty good episodes on breastfeeding back in the day.
That was a two parter, right.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
We did one on bottle feeding and one on breastfeeding.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Right, Yeah, so feeding your baby, and you know, I
recommend you you do those and we got you know,
it's always when it's two dudes podcasting about this stuff
about lady stuff, we were always a little nervous and
we always get really good feedback. From women that say, like,
you guys did a really good job, and it's good
that you guys are out there, sort of not feeling
(36:21):
like it has to come from a woman's perspective. So
I hope we're doing this all justice, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
God, I hope so too.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
I think you're doing fine.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I think you're doing great.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
But I'm just another CIS dude.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
So if you want to target alo pregnant alone, there's
a drug called bre san alone yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
There's another one called Zura no loan yeah, and those
are the generic terms for them. The problem is, as
it stands right now, if you're paying out of pocket
with zero insurance, you're gonna pay thirty four grand for
one in the United States. I'm sure it's like ten
bucks in Canada, yeah, or fifteen grand for the other.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Shame shame, shame.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, hopefully if you have even passingly decent insurance in
the United States, like, you're not going to pay anything
even remotely like that. But yes, I think you should
say it again, chuck.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Yeah, still, even if enturance is covering it, shame, shame, shame, shame,
capital sham.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
E Good for you, buddy, And now here's an ad
for saran alone.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Oh man, you're managing to squeeze in some jokes. I
like that.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I like you.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
So can men get postpartum depression? The answer is yes,
that can happen. Apparently, between eight and ten percent of
new dads suffer from some kind of anxiety or depression
after the birth of a job, and it also may
be connected to hormones in some cases. It's usually later
than women might experience it, between three and six months later,
(38:01):
maybe up to a year later, but a lot of
the same you know issues, sleep issues, loss of appetite,
feeling overwhelmed, tired, sad, anxious, and also the same people
at risk if you're a younger dad, if you have
a history of depression, if you are struggling financially, or
if you're just having trouble in your marriage or relationship.
(38:22):
You know, you don't have to be married to have
a baby. We all know that, all right, All of
those same kind of risk factors.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Right, And there's also additional risk factors that dads customarily
have that new mom's necess don't necessarily and that's a
sense that's like the new mom is expected to be
a great mom and raise a great healthy well adjusted
baby right out of the box. The dad is expected
to really step it up and provide for his new family,
(38:49):
and that can often mean like, well, you're stuck here
in this job and you're now beholden to this employer
and like you may this that might not be the
great greatest feeling in the world for you right then,
And at the very least, it's additional pressure. So that
can also kick off postpartum depression in dad's which was
I think best expressed in the whamsong Everything she wants.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
That's right, and I hope this is clear. But to
be clear, we're not obviously talking about the old days
where like the man's got the job and the woman
doesn't work and isn't expected to. But you know, in
two income families, a lot of times when a mom
has a baby, they at the very least hopefully have
a great maternity leave kind of situation. If not, sometimes
(39:37):
they have to leave like whatever job and just not
get paid for a while. So there may be more
pressure on the second income earner to you know, kind
of make up for that loss or at least keep
the ship afloat till mom can get back to work.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah, and one of the I guess quirks of the
United States economy. I guess is that especially if you
if you have a two income house and there there
is not great maternal leave or paternal leave, both parents
have to go to work very soon after the birth,
(40:09):
they will have to put their kid in childcare. The
United States, unlike some other countries, does not have free childcare.
It is a paid problem, private business industry. And some
couples figure out that the cost of daycare is more
(40:30):
than say the mom or the dad would actually bring home,
and so in that sense it makes sense to just
for the mom or the dad to stay home whoever
has the lower income that daycare would exceed. That's nuts
that that happens to anybody, and it happens to a
decent amount, at least anecdotally.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yeah, for sure, day care is really really expensive, and
it's a it's a real shame because that can that
helps the family, that helps for outcomes for the in
their development. So my recommendation is to use your voice
at the voting booth and if there are candidates in
your local city or state or nationwide that believe in
(41:12):
the idea of free childcare, then speak with your vote.
That's all I'm going to say on that.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Okay, one other thing too, Chuck. It's not just environment.
Just like with postpartum depression in women, postpartum depression in
men also seems to have to do with hormones, because
men's hormones are the balance of hormones change during pregnancy
as well, which is pretty neat.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yeah, for sure, your testosterone is going to probably drop
during the pregnancy and continues to get lower after the
birth happens. And people think, you know, researchers think that
that's basically to keep tooktook at bay and to reduce
aggressive tendencies while you know, father infant bonding is happening, Like,
(42:00):
chill out, dad, you need to be gentler right now.
So we're gonna lower your.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Tea, right and also stick around and help raise the
kid rather than go look for your next conquest.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, man, I wonder if I should say this on
the air.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Well, we can edit it out.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
All right, We'll see. One of the funny things that
Emily has done lately is you know, you know, all
the in a stupid man of sphere world, like you know,
low tea beta male. Soy, that's another one. Like you're soy,
like because you eat soy instead of meat like a
man does. She will anytime I'm like, I don't know,
(42:40):
just being wishy washy about something, or what if she
feels like she just wants to kind of pokepun at me,
she she'll call me like a beta cook or ask
me if I have low tea, or like hey, soy,
come over here and help me with this thing. Oh
my gosh, it's very I mean, it always just brings
the house down between the two of us because it's
just such a dumb thing. Anyway, I like that she's
taken something from the manisphere and kind of twisted it
(43:01):
to use it in our own marriage as a comedy.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
I would love to be sitting on the couch someday
and heard do that to you, because yes, I would
so funny.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Yeah, I wait for Ruby to be like, what's a
beta cup?
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Right? Let's see? Oh yeah. Postpartum depression is also treatable
and dad, so if you think you have it, to
kelp because it's very treatable too.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Uh, you got anything else?
Speaker 1 (43:27):
I got nothing else? Man. I always feel like we're
on ice skates with these episodes.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
So I didn't feel like that about this one.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I always get a little nervous in how I speak
about this stuff. So I hope you did Okay, you
did great? Man, you did great?
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Well, then it sounds like we both did great.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
But I want moms to write in and say you
did great. I don't care what I think about you
and what you think about me anymore. We know we
love each other.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
All right, fair enough? Okay, Yeah, if you're a new
mom or an old mom or even never had kids,
it doesn't matter. We would love to hear from you
about this episode.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Yeah, and not just saying we're great, Like if we
fell short, let us know and we'll try and do
better and correct it.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Well. Put man, I'm glad you said that too, because yeah,
we sounded like a couple of I know, like please
make us feel better, right, a couple of cucks.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Beta cucks.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, since Chuck just laughed about beta cucks again, it's
so funny. That means it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
Soy is the one that really gets me.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Well, you know it's crazy as soy actually does raise
your estrogen levels and can give men many boobs.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Oh well, great, give it to me. I love it
all right. This is from Adam and Michigan. Hey, guys,
I'm a little more than disappointed that in the Three
Mile Island episode you fail to mention professional wrestler Adam Baum.
He was a popular wrestler in the nineteen eighties and
the WWF. He was billed as being from three Mile
Island and was in imposing six six two ninety well.
(44:55):
He had yellow con yellow contact lenses and a spinish
move was called the Adam Smasher. This is so great.
He was a rather imposing figure with a very creepy
theme song, and he made quite an impact. His real
name is Brian Clark. He's still alive and looks almost
like he did in the nineteen eighties. Adam from Michigan.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Nice. I had never heard of him, so thank you
for letting us know. Adam.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
You hadn't heard of him?
Speaker 1 (45:20):
No, I mean I didn't keep up with wrestling much.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
No, I didn't either, But it sounds like we were
missing out on a lot.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
But you know, we're just soy love and Beta Cux.
So what do we know.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
If you want to be like Adam and let us know? Wait,
is this from Adam Bomb himself.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
No, this is a d A.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
M oh okay. Well, there was an Adam Bomb who
was a DJ at album maybe eight. For a while,
he had like the Soul something show.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Oh wow, I bet I listened to it.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
It was really good. Well, anyway, thanks a lot Adam
from Michigan for letting us know about Adam Bomb. We
love that And if you want to get in touch
with us like Adam did, you can send us an
email to send it off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Josh Clark
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