‘WRACKED WITH GUILT’
Mum tried to kill husband and newborn after suffering terrifying hallucinations and not sleeping for 40 hours
Postpartum psychosis is a serious medical emergency, the NHS says
A MUM has revealed how she tried to kill her husband and baby after being plagued by hallucinations.
Laura, 35, from Chesterfield, Derbyshire, suffered postpartum psychosis and said she felt “the only way to be together” with her family was to drive them all into a wall.
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The office administrator had previously not suffered any mental health issues but was diagnosed two weeks after giving birth to her daughter Olivia.
Laura started getting feelings “like somebody was trying to take us” and nearly crashed the car while driving to her friend’s house after being awake for 40 hours.
She said: “The first hallucination I had was Olivia being molested and thrown about. I had three of those dreams and it got to the point where I didn’t want to go to bed.
“The lack of sleep got a lot worse and because Dan was sleeping I was resenting him. I began to be aggressive towards him.
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“I still feel guilty, even though it wasn’t me, it could have ended so differently. I owe my life to the unit.”
Postpartum psychosis is a serious mental health illness that occurs in around 1 in 1,000 mothers giving birth.
While it is common to experience the “baby blues” after giving birth, postpartum psychosis is different and should be treated as a medical emergency, according to the NHS.
Symptoms like hallucinations, delusions, mania, low mood and feeling very confused usually occur within the first two weeks.
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Doctors are not sure what causes it exactly but women who have bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or a history of mental illness in the family are more at risk.
Laura, who shared her story in the Channel 4 documentary Losing It: Our Mental Health Emergency, started suffering hallucinations in the days after giving birth in 2019.
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She revealed how she started feeling more aggressive than usual and resenting her partner Dan, 33, before the episode where she nearly killed them.
She said: “Dan was driving but in my head he was blinking for longer periods than normal as if he was about to fall asleep, so I asked him to pull over and said I would drive.
“I got in the driver’s seat and cried and explained to him that I was having hallucinations.
“I was really upset and, because he didn’t comfort me, it made me mad and angry and I asked him if I could end it.
MEDICAL EMERGENCY
“In a split second I just set off in the car. It felt like somebody was trying to take one of us and I just wanted us to be together, so logically the only way to be together was to end it.
“I was going faster and faster and saw a wall. Dan was screaming ‘please stop, please stop, Olivia needs a mum and a future, please stop’.”
Dan pressed the car’s start/stop button, which slowed it down, and managed to get himself and Olivia out.
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Laura sped off but returned and was taken to A&E before being sectioned and spending six weeks with a perinatal team at Nottinghamshire Healthcare Trust.
She was given haloperidol, an anti-psychotic medication, and monitored closely before she recovered.
What are the signs and symptoms of postpartum psychosis?
Symptoms can include:
- hallucinations – hearing, seeing, smelling or feeling things that are not there
- delusions – suspicions, fears, thoughts or beliefs that are unlikely to be true
- mania – feeling very "high" or overactive, for example, talking and thinking too much or too quickly, restlessness or losing normal inhibitions
- a low mood – showing signs of depression, being withdrawn or tearful, lacking energy, having a loss of appetite, anxiety, agitation or trouble sleeping
- sometimes a mixture of both a manic mood and a low mood - or rapidly changing moods
- feeling very confused
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