Six weeks after the birth of her first child, Jody Orme's head was swimming with well-meaning advice from friends and family.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
She had decided to try a controlled feeding routine with her son, Willy, every three hours, but ended up feeding him on demand too because she was told he could be going through a growth spurt.
"I was up every half hour to feed him, and by six weeks I wasn't sleeping at all. I'd lie down in bed and be convulsing," she said.
On October 3 last year, after a morning spent shopping for a party to celebrate Willy's arrival, Jody called her fiance Cameron and told him he should return immediately to their home in Melbourne's west.
"At about six or seven o'clock I was breastfeeding Willy and I saw him as being ugly. His head was all veiny and I said to Cameron, 'Something's wrong, I'm seeing him ugly. Don't let me hurt him, I think I need help,'" she said.
Cameron promised they would see a doctor in the morning, but became so concerned about Jody's increasingly erratic behaviour - turning on all the lights in the house, refusing to swaddle Willy - that at 3am he called an ambulance.
Jody was diagnosed with postnatal psychosis, a condition neither she nor her fiance had heard of. They spent 12 hours in the emergency department of their local hospital before Jody was admitted to a mother and baby unit, having been awake for 48 hours and refusing to take any medication.
"By this point I was delirious. I thought the nurse was beating up Willy and I locked myself in the bathroom with him at one point," she said.
Another night passed without Jody getting any sleep, and she demanded to see some paperwork on the medication nurses were trying to convince her to take. All she read were the words "do not take this medication while breastfeeding".
"I said, 'I'm not taking it, stay away from me.' It ended up five or six of them had to grab me ... they held me down and ended up injecting me.
"They ended up taking Willy away because I tried to breastfeed him. They took me to the high-dependency ward and I was just screaming for Cameron and Willy. Probably for two or three hours I didn't stop screaming."
Jody, who is telling her story to raise awareness about postnatal psychosis, had some dark days in the high-dependency ward over the next two weeks. At times she didn't know who she was, and thought the newspaper was talking to her.
Things improved after Jody returned to the mother and baby unit, when her medication took effect and she got some sleep.
Royal Women's Hospital psychiatrist Tram Nguyen said postnatal psychosis was a rare and serious condition that affected one or two women out of every 1000 who gave birth, equating to about 150 women a year in NSW.
Paranoia, delusions and hallucinations are common, and usually appear rapidly in women without previous experience of mental illness.
Doctors suspect that the women who are affected are more vulnerable to changes in hormones after giving birth, particularly a drop in oestrogen.
"It's off the radar for many people, including health staff, because it is so rare, and it can sometimes seem taboo," Dr Nguyen said.
"It's quite difficult to talk about women who [soon after the birth of their child] become very distressed, and have thoughts of hurting themselves or their infant.
"Public awareness is really important, and letting people know there are effective treatments that should be sought very quickly."
Dr Nguyen said women generally recovered quickly but risked another episode if they gave birth again, making it important for them to work with mental health professionals on a management plan.
Philip Boyce, an expert in perinatal psychiatry from the University of Sydney's medical school, said NSW was the only mainland state in Australia to have no mother and baby units, which means women have their babies taken away from them if they need to go into hospital.
In cases where there is no other family member available to look after the baby, the child can be removed by child services. In 2011, the Australian Medical Association NSW called for such units to be set up "as a matter of urgency".
In Jody's case, she made a good recovery after a five-week hospital stay and re-established her bond with Willy.
"There was a moment there when I had half an hour and I was on the floor with him and just giggling away and I was in tears because I was just so happy," she said.
Today she loves being a mother, and keeps her stress levels under control with plenty of sleep, exercise and good food.
"I'm having so much fun, every day is wonderful. We go to the playground, the library and swimming every week, and just talking with other mums really helps.
"But even going through all that, I'd do it again just to have him."
For help and more information on postnatal depression and postnatal psychosis, visit the Beyond Blue or PANDA websites. For immediate help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.