What not to say to a friend with postpartum depression

While there are many helpful things to say to a woman with postpartum depression, there are a lot of statements that can actually be very detrimental to a woman that is suffering. Hear Katherine Stone's advice on on what not to say in this situation.
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What not to say to a friend with postpartum depression

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I think usually the most painful things that you can say to Mom's with postpartum depression are around whether she should have ever become a mother in the first place. Cause obviously if you are sad when you have a new baby then there is something terribly wrong with you and you probably should not be allowed to even become a mom. So, there is a lot of things like, why did you have kids? And didn't you know that this is what it's going to be like? And will you have a healthy babies? So, what is wrong with you? You have everything to be happy for. It is not like we are not already thinking those things ourselves, but then you get them form the outside, and you start internalizing and you take sort of how you feel about yourself and how badly you feel with PPD how and then you pile on top of that how everyone else is looking at you as gets. It is a kind of thing that you feel like you never climb out of, it is awful.

While there are many helpful things to say to a woman with postpartum depression, there are a lot of statements that can actually be very detrimental to a woman that is suffering. Hear Katherine Stone's advice on on what not to say in this situation.

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Katherine Stone

Parenting Columnist & Advocate

Katherine Stone is the founder and editor of Postpartum Progress, the world’s leading blog on postpartum depression, and a columnist for Disney’s Babble.com. She’s also the founder of Postpartum Progress Inc., a national nonprofit focused on vastly improving support for women with PPD. In 2012, Katherine was named one of the fiercest women in America as part of More magazine’s annual Fierce List. She also was listed among the most influential mom bloggers in 2011 and 2012 by Babble, and has been selected as a Health Hero by WebMD. Katherine has been featured by CNN, the Huffington Post, Yahoo, AOL, PBS, The Today Show, HLN, ABC News and the Washington Post, among others.

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Transcription: 
I think usually the most painful things that you can say to Mom's with postpartum depression are around whether she should have ever become a mother in the first place. Cause obviously if you are sad when you have a new baby then there is something terribly wrong with you and you probably should not be allowed to even become a mom. So, there is a lot of things like, why did you have kids? And didn't you know that this is what it's going to be like? And will you have a healthy babies? So, what is wrong with you? You have everything to be happy for. It is not like we are not already thinking those things ourselves, but then you get them form the outside, and you start internalizing and you take sort of how you feel about yourself and how badly you feel with PPD how and then you pile on top of that how everyone else is looking at you as gets. It is a kind of thing that you feel like you never climb out of, it is awful.