BABY BLUES


WHEN MOTHERS CAN‘T
LOVE THEIR NEWLY BORNS

As soon as the 26-year-old Berit from Bochum was placed his newborn son Finn on her belly, she felt that something was wrong. „I felt no mother feelings. He did not feel like my son.“ When a few days later Berit went back home, she felt on the edge of a total breakdown. „ As soon as I was alone, I immediately thought: my husband will have to educate Finn by himself. I get in the car and crash against a tree. I do not come back any more.“

Psychiatrists have a name for the desperate situation that Berit and an endless number of women experience after the birth of their children: „ postpartum depression“. This can affect out of the blue each new mother and, in worst case, can have lethal consequences: the suicide of the mother or the murdering of the baby. But even if the disease does not have such a dramatic end, postpartum depression feels like hell to the new mothers. They do not only suffer because they cannot feel any love for their newborn baby, they also feel guilty for not being „a good mother“.

„No Feelings For The Newborn Baby“ accompanies 26-year-old Berit, her 3-month young son Finn, 25-year-old Lena and her little Emilia while overcoming the depression - and learning how to love their own child. Both women are in the „mother-child“ department of the Westphälisches Zentrum für Psychiatrie in Hern where Dr. Luc Turmes and his team are taking care of them.

Lena tried to kill herself. Her partner Marc found her just on time. She was ashamed that she had once forgotten to feed her little daughter Emilia.

Lena and Berit admit very bravely their disease. It is stigmatised with many tabus and therefore painfully repressed. Experts believe that 15 percent of German mothers suffer from some mild or severe form of postpartum depression: that makes between 80, and 120,000 women per year. Everybody can be a „bad mother“. Susanne is 40 years old and gynaecologist. She has been helping hundreds of women during the pregnancy and the delivery. Until she got her first baby - and got depression. When her husband left the house, she started to panic because she could not stand being alone with her newborn daughter Clara. Susanne has overcome the nightmare. Berit and Lena are still fighting to make this horror trip of shame and guilty stop. „No Feelings For The Newborn Baby“ shows that life is not an adverting spot and that the concept of „Motherly love“ needs to be redefined.

When health insurance companies do only cover the costs for the treatment the mothers, Dr. Luc Turmes´s association „Bei Aller Liebe“ pays for the costs of the care of the the babies.

Psychiatrists have a name for the desperate situation that Berit and an endless number of women experience after the birth of their children: „ postpartum depression“. This can affect out of the blue each new mother and, in worst case, can have lethal consequences: the suicide of the mother or the murdering of the baby. But even if the disease does not have such a dramatic end, postpartum depression feels like hell to the new mothers. They do not only suffer because they cannot feel any love for their newborn baby, they also feel guilty for not being „a good mother“.

„No Feelings For The Newborn Baby“ accompanies 26-year-old Berit, her 3-month young son Finn, 25-year-old Lena and her little Emilia while overcoming the depression - and learning how to love their own child. Both women are in the „mother-child“ department of the Westphälisches Zentrum für Psychiatrie in Hern where Dr. Luc Turmes and his team are taking care of them.

Lena tried to kill herself. Her partner Marc found her just on time. She was ashamed that she had once forgotten to feed her little daughter Emilia.

Lena and Berit admit very bravely their disease. It is stigmatised with many tabus and therefore painfully repressed. Experts believe that 15 percent of German mothers suffer from some mild or severe form of postpartum depression: that makes between 80, and 120,000 women per year. Everybody can be a „bad mother“. Susanne is 40 years old and gynaecologist. She has been helping hundreds of women during the pregnancy and the delivery. Until she got her first baby - and got depression. When her husband left the house, she started to panic because she could not stand being alone with her newborn daughter Clara. Susanne has overcome the nightmare. Berit and Lena are still fighting to make this horror trip of shame and guilty stop. „No Feelings For The Newborn Baby“ shows that life is not an adverting spot and that the concept of „Motherly love“ needs to be redefined.

When health insurance companies do only cover the costs for the treatment the mothers, Dr. Luc Turmes´s association „Bei Aller Liebe“ pays for the costs of the care of the the babies.

Facts

Erstausstrahlung: Dienstag, 10.10.2006, 22.15 Uhr (in der ZDF-Reihe 37 Grad)

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Credits

Written by: Francesca D´Amicis

Director of Photography: Samir Saad, Johannes Imdahl, Matthias Klösener

Consulting and Production: colourFIELD – Petra Höfer and Freddie Röckenhaus

Commissioning Editor: Michael Petsch (ZDF)

A colourFIELD production commissioned by ZDF

Full credits

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