Tripping Through Motherhood: How Some Women Are Using Ketamine to Treat Postpartum Depression
Melissa Whippo and Juli Fraga
After her youngest child was born, Sam* struggled to find any joy in motherhood. “I felt like a ghost,” she says. At her lowest point Sam fantasized about getting in her car and leaving her baby forever. “When I couldn’t tell myself confidently that I wouldn’t get in the car and drive away and never come back, I told my partner and called psychiatrists, begging for help.”
Sam is far from the only mother who has felt depressed, anxious, and traumatized after giving birth. In most cases, a combination of psychotherapy, social support, and antidepressant medication (when needed) helps ease harrowing symptoms like extreme sadness and hopelessness—all signs of postpartum depression (PPD), the number one complication of pregnancy, which affects up to 17% of mothers.
But for some, PPD doesn’t completely vanish.
