During the fall of 2020, while the rest of the world was feeling stuck during the ongoing pandemic quarantine, Nicole Kumi felt empowered at home. She’d just given birth to her second child, he was eating well, and breastfeeding was going much more smoothly than it did while nursing her daughter three years earlier. But the tranquility was short-lived—after a few weeks, he became colicky, crying endlessly.
“The deal was that I’d sleep from 8 p.m. to midnight, and my husband would sleep from midnight until 4 a.m.,” says Kumi, a behavioral health specialist who lives in Silver Spring. But when it came time for her to lie down, she couldn’t sleep. Her mind raced anxiously. One night, after she thought she heard a scratching noise in the kitchen, she took everything out of all the chests and drawers, convinced there would be evidence of a mouse.
There wasn’t.
The next morning, with the kitchen in complete disarray, Kumi and her husband acknowledged that she needed help. Kumi, who is 41 now and has shifted her behavioral health practice to counsel women with postpartum mood disorders, decided to contact her older daughter’s child care provider. Though her son was only 8 weeks old—and Kumi still had three weeks left of maternity leave—the woman who ran the child care center assured her that she and her staff would watch over the baby and that Kumi should get some sleep.
“She was my savior,” Kumi says.
A dozen women listen to Kumi share this story and nod in understanding. All 12 work for Wonders Early Learning + Extended Day, a Bethesda-based child care center. They’re gathered for training on how to identify and help parents who experience a postpartum mood disorder. Such training previously targeted medical professionals who come in contact with new parents, but today’s is geared toward child care providers, who, experts are realizing, have a front-row seat to parents during a crucial postpartum period.
“These [child care] professionals play a pivotal role in connecting and interacting with parents during such a vulnerable time,” Kumi says.
Liza Pringle, the curriculum and instruction specialist at Wonders, opted to attend an online training session in postpartum mood disorders after sharing with Joanne Hurt, the executive director, that one pregnant mother didn’t seem like herself when dropping off an older child. After hearing about Pringle’s positive experience, Hurt contacted Mikah Goldman Berg, the chapters program manager for Postpartum Support International (PSI), a national organization with headquarters in Portland, Oregon. Berg connected Hurt with Kumi, who serves on the Maryland chapter’s board.
PSI’s trainings on postpartum mood disorders are typically geared toward medical professionals, though some are open to anyone. The goal of the training at Wonders, Kumi says, is to ensure that child care providers understand the prevalence of postpartum mood disorders and how to provide resources. “These are people who are seeing the moms in vulnerable settings where they may have their guard down,” Kumi says. “Many parents can keep defenses high around friends and family, and then have their breakdown…in an unusual location, such as a child care drop-off or pickup.”
During her training, Pringle was surprised to learn how often a pediatrician’s office assumed such postpartum mood disorder screenings were being done by OB-GYNs, and how often OB-GYNs thought the pediatrician’s office was doing them. “It made me realize how many women were being missed in this process, and that we had access to them and could play a role,” she says.
Only 20% of moms receive a screening, according to PSI data, despite one in five new moms and one in 10 new dads experiencing a postpartum mood disorder.
While early childhood educators can’t conduct screenings or provide diagnostic guidelines, they can be aware of signs to look for and how to intervene. “Postpartum mood disorders don’t discriminate,” Kumi says. “It can be just as prevalent in a government-funded day care as an affluent, prestigious preschool. It’s knowing what to look for that matters.”
Berg believes that training people who come in contact with new parents is one of the best ways to increase awareness of postpartum mood disorders and encourage those affected to seek help. Like Kumi, she knows this from firsthand experience following the births of her two daughters. It wasn’t until she found a support group through PSI that she understood she wasn’t alone. “Having people say, ‘You are not alone, you are not to blame, and, with help, you will be well,’ is what made a difference,” Berg says. “So many moms don’t know it’s so prevalent or where to look for help.”
Following the training, Wonders is updating how it connects with parents who might have a postpartum mood disorder. PSI resources will be readily available to families and prominently posted, and its leadership team will incorporate check-in questions that teachers can use to aid parents. Wonders also plans to incorporate lessons learned from Kumi’s training into the routine training for teachers.
“We can take this on,” Pringle says. “The parents can know they aren’t alone. We just need to be informed so we know the next steps to give them help.”
This story appears in the May/June edition of Bethesda Magazine.