The birth of a new baby is a joyous event, but for some mothers, the situation is far more complex.
While many women experience some mild mood changes during or after the birth of a child, 15% to 20% of women experience more significant symptoms of postpartum depression and other perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, according to Vanessa McMullan, LCSW, Supervisor at The Marks Family Right From The Start 0-3+ Center, one of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center’s three locations.
McMullan and the other therapists who are part of the Guidance Center’s Diane Goldberg Maternal Depression Program work with clients whose symptoms may include feelings of anger, sadness, irritability, guilt, lack of interest in the baby, changes in eating and sleeping habits, trouble concentrating, thoughts of hopelessness and sometimes even thoughts of harming the baby or herself. These symptoms can also begin during pregnancy, not just after they have the baby.
“A lot of times when a woman is experiencing postpartum depression or anxiety, their partners don’t always know how to help, which can create a lot of stress on the relationship,” says McMullan. If it’s their first baby, many women felt unprepared for the possibility of depression and feel devastated when they experience these symptoms. “Nobody talks about this until it happens, which makes it harder to come to terms with,” says McMullan. “They can feel that they weren’t meant to be a mother.”
Maternal depression also has a negative impact on infant and child development, with research citing the potential of speech and language delays, behavioral difficulties, lower performance in school, and an inability to form trusting relationships as part of the spectrum of outcomes.
But there’s good news. Through our Diane Goldberg Maternal Depression Program, the Guidance Center provides rapid response and diagnosis for mothers suffering from postpartum depression and other perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. Our services include:
Screening and assessments
Individual, couple and family therapy
Crisis intervention consultation
Psychiatric evaluations and medication management, where needed
Support groups
Back-to-work family support
Help with self-care
“One of our most important roles is to validate that, while motherhood can be wonderful in many ways, it’s OK to admit it can be really hard, especially in the beginning,” says McMullan. “With our programs, mothers can meet others like them and get a lot of support and encouragement. And the babies can play together, too. It provides a lot of opportunities for mothers to get out of the house and not feel so isolated.”
If you are a new mom—or know someone who is—and are worried about how you or she is feeling, please give us a call at (516) 626-1971. We can help.
Dina De Giorgio (center) of the Town of North Hempstead honored Vivian Moy (left) of the Port Washington Crisis Relief Team and Nancy Lane of the North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center at the town’s 25th Annual May W. Newburger Women’s Roll of Honor.
Andrew Malekoff (right) of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center was honored with a Folio Award from the Fair Media Council. (Also shown, from left) Jo-Ellen Hazan, Rita Castagna and Frank Castagna.
Includes Book Signing by author of Creative Mind: A Diary of Teenage Mental Illness
Roslyn Heights, NY, April 17, 2018 — On Friday April 13th, North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center hosted a program featuring Long Island author Nicole Nagy.
Nagy’s book, Creative Mind: A Diary of Teenage Mental Illness, is a moving first-person account of her mental health challenges and also of the roadblocks she faced when trying to access timely and affordable treatment.
Nagy, a graduate social work student at Stony Brook, has also become a Project Access advocate, fighting alongside the Guidance Center for timely, affordable access to mental health and addictions care. The April 13 program featured Nagy’s discussion of her journey to healing and also addressed the battle to overcome stigma.
Nicole Nagy signs her book for Guidance Center Associate Executive Director Regina Barros-Rivera.
“In her book, Nicole writes with an authentic, courageous voice as she talks about her experiences with depression and anxiety,” said Andrew Malekoff, Executive Director of the Guidance Center.“With this book, Nicole has helped lift the fear of stigma by so honestly sharing her story. In addition, her advocacy for people struggling with mental health issues is very powerful. The battle for access to care is a matter of civil rights for millions of people.”
Even with excellent health insurance, Nagy said that getting access to treatment was very difficult. “It took weeks to get an appointment after I was hospitalized for a suicide attempt,” she said. When she was finally able to get the help she needed, she “learned to own and manage my illness and love myself.” Her goal is to share her story with everyone she can and give them hope.
The April 13th event included insights from an outstanding panel: Nancy Manigat, Chief Program Officer of CN Guidance & Counseling Services; author and psychotherapist Sean Grover; Kerry Lynn Eller, a social worker at North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center who has experienced the difficulty of accessing mental health care in her own family; and the Reverend Gideon L. K. Pollach, rector at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Cold Spring Harbor, NY.
“Nicole’s story shows that having mental illness and being successful are not mutually exclusive,” said Eller. Grover talked about the need for adults to remember what it was like being a teenager and to “tap into our humanity,” while Pollach spoke of the need for communities of faith to fight for parity for mental health and addictions treatment.
Left to Right: Andrew Malekoff, Sean Grover, Nicole Nagy, Kerry Lynn Eller, Nancy Manigat, and Reverend Gideon L.K. Pollach.
Manigat, Chief Program Officer of CN Guidance & Counseling Services, applauded Nagy for being an advocate, and also spoke about the importance of the Project Access study, which surveyed 650 Long Islanders about their experience trying to find mental health care. “We are so grateful for the opportunity to work with North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center on this very important study with the goal of improving access to lifesaving services for individuals living with a mental health and/or substance use disorder,” said Manigat. “Through our participation with Project Access, we were able to provide significant data which helped identify obstacles to care. At CN Guidance and Counseling Services, we believe in every individual’s ability to recover – and access to care is a necessary component of treatment. We are enthusiastic about the potential for change to come through the results of this survey.”
As the preeminent not-for-profit children’s mental health agency on Long Island, North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is dedicated to restoring and strengthening the emotional well-being of children (from birth – age 24) and their families. Our highly trained staff of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, vocational rehabilitation counselors and other mental health professionals lead the way in diagnosis, treatment, prevention, training, parent education, research and advocacy. The Guidance Center helps children and families address issues such as depression and anxiety; developmental delays; bullying; teen pregnancy; sexual abuse; teen drug and alcohol abuse; and family crises stemming from illness, death, trauma and divorce. For more than 60 years, the Guidance Center has been a place of hope and healing, providing innovative and compassionate treatment to all who enter our doors, regardless of their ability to pay. For more information about the Guidance Center, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org or call (516) 626-1971.
When it comes to professional sports, talk is usually focused on performance stats, injuries and other game-related topics. Rarely is emotional well-being part of the discussion. But several NBA stars have opened up about their struggles with issues like depression and anxiety—a brave move in a culture that still tends to stigmatize mental health issues.
An article on the NBA’s website focused on three star players: DeMar DeRosen, Kevin Love and Kelly Oubre Jr. The players all expressed hope that bringing the conversation about mental health into the open would help remove some of the stigma.
DeRosen had sent out a tweet about his depression, and he was very moved by the public’s reaction: “The response I got from people was so uplifting, positive, refreshing,” says DeRosen. “It’s crazy. But it made me feel good. You just look at certain things. People say ‘you helped me. Because if you’re going through something like this, I can get through it.’ It’s incredible.”
Kevin Love, who has openly discussed his panic attacks and subsequent therapy, wrote: “Mental health isn’t just an athlete thing. What you do for a living doesn’t have to define who you are. This is an everyone thing.”
While some athletes fear that others may think that, because they make a lot of money, they have no right to complain, sports psychologist Brent Walker wrote: “The reality is that professional athletes are not different,” Walker said. “Everyone has their struggles regardless of what it looks like on the outside. We all have stuff we have to deal with. Where it gets different and difficult for the professional athletes is that it’s worst in a team sport in that, ‘I can’t let anybody know. I’ve got to be a man [or woman]. I can’t let anyone know there’s something wrong with me.’ ”
North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center Executive Director Andrew Malekoff was an athlete in high school and college, and he echoes the idea that players at any level fear letting down their teammates. “One of the stresses I dealt with all the time was playing with injuries and not letting anyone know how much pain I was in, physically and emotionally,” he says. “It was as if my sense of worth was only a function of my performance.”
So, what does this mean to a child or teen athlete? The reality is that, starting at a very young age, many kids are often still taught to “suck it up” and play regardless of their physical or emotional state. That has to change.
“The fact that some of their heroes are speaking out about their battles with issues like anxiety and depression is a huge step in making it acceptable to discuss mental health issues,” says Malekoff. “Parents can also make a big difference by making sure their kids hear about these stories, so if they’re feeling emotionally vulnerable, they can know that they have nothing to be ashamed of and that it’s OK to seek out help.”
In addition, be sure that you demonstrate your pride in your child no matter how well they perform in a game. Point out what they do right and leave the coaching to the coaches.
From left, James Kinney, Fair Media Council board chairman; Andrew Malekoff, executive director of North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center; and Jaci Clement, CEO and executive director of Fair Media Council. (Photo courtesy of North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center)
North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center Executive Director Andrew Malekoff was honored today at the Fair Media Council’s Folio Awards as Best Columnist. His winning column was “Looking for a Path Back to Civility,” which ran in Newsday’s Opinion section on Sept. 17, 2017.
Here is an excerpt from the column:
Most people I talk to agree that civility is on the decline. Everyone seems to have his or her own horror stories, whether it is inconsiderate neighbors or co-workers, aggressive driving or just plain rudeness.
Highways have become the Wild West. Hardly anyone comes to a complete stop for a stop sign. The yellow traffic signal has evolved from its original meaning, slow down, to speed up. And, of course, there are tailgating, middle-finger salutes and rampant road rage.
Today, there is so much talk about putting an end to bullying in schools. Yet, we live in a world of adults who don’t think twice about trampling personal boundaries through rude, intimidating and obnoxious behavior.
If we cannot reverse the trend, we can at least slow down and teach our children, after we remind ourselves, the importance of putting a pause between impulse and action. Perhaps it is somewhere inside of that sacred space that we can find our way back to a civil society.
“I’m honored to receive this prestigious journalism award, especially for this piece that I’ve come to realize has such universal appeal,” said Malekoff.
“It’s more important than ever for responsible, credible voices to take a leading role in the public conversation to ensure we have an informed public and a smarter democracy,” said Jaci Clement, CEO and executive director of Fair Media Council. “Winning a Fair Media Council Folio Award illustrates North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center’s commitment to bettering the community by raising awareness, and cements its role as a Long Island leader.”
