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She Strived to Be the Perfect Mom and Landed in the Psych Ward

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David Abramson researched postpartum psychosis on the internet when he suspected his wife Lisa was showing signs of it after having their first daughter, Lucy. (Claire Mulkey)

This week we reprise our documentary about a Silicon Valley woman who thought she would be the perfect mom. This story originally aired on Dec. 7, 2018.

Listen to this and more in-depth storytelling by subscribing to The California Report Magazine podcast.

Lisa Abramson wanted to be the perfect mom. She'd been a successful marketing executive for a Silicon Valley tech company and a successful entrepreneur. And that first week after her baby was born, everything was going according to plan.

But then, Lisa started to feel like she was failing as a mom. She started getting more exhausted and confused.

"I just said to my husband probably a hundred, 200 times that day, 'Am I crazy? Am I crazy? Am I crazy?'" Lisa said. A few weeks later, Lisa's husband checked her into the general psychiatric ward of a San Francisco hospital.

Read Lisa's full story, including photos of her and her daughter Lucy

She was diagnosed with postpartum psychosis — something that affects one or two women out of every thousand that give birth. But experts believe more women are affected than previously thought, and more of them are ending up dead, by suicide.

A recently completed study found that 99 new moms in California committed suicide over a 10-year period, and, according to the study, 98 of them were preventable.

Mental health problems are one of the leading causes of death among new moms, and doctors say that even when women do seek out treatment, it's often inadequate or inappropriate.

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