A Nurse Called the Police on This Mom For Confessing She Has Postpartum Depression

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After finally going to her first doctor’s appointment 4 months after giving birth to her daughter, Kira – Jessica Porten was eager to get something off her chest.

The new Mom was struggling with postpartum depression.

About an hour after she arrived for her 2 p.m. appointment, her name was called.Finally, Jessica was going to get some much-needed help — until the nurse called the police on her.

In a Facebook post, Jessica explained how the disturbing situation all began:

A nurse practitioner came in . . . [and I told her] that I have postpartum depression that’s manifesting into fits of anger, and I want to discuss my medication options. I tell them I have a very strong support system at home, so although I would never hurt myself or my baby, I’m having violent thoughts and I need medication and therapy to get through this. She rushed through my pelvic exam, barely spoke about medication, said she needed to talk to the doctor about my PPD, and left the room. 

Jessica then imagined the doctor would come in and examine her, but what happened next was entirely unexpected. “They called the f*cking cops on me,” she wrote.

After the police arrived, she was forced to drive to the hospital — with one cop driving in front of her and one behind her the entire way there.

Once they arrived at the ER, she was triaged, got her blood drawn, and sat with a security guard who was assigned to “babysit” her until her husband, Scott, arrived.

Then, they were forced to wait.

According to the Mom, despite all of this, she was never seen as a priority, much less a patient:

We missed dinner, so a nurse gives us two sh*tty little turkey sandwiches. I am not seen by a social worker until 10:45 p.m. She decides she does not need to put me on a psychiatric hold and they process my discharge. Not once during all of this has a doctor laid eyes on me. Not once. Not even before they decided to call the cops on me. The social worker hands me some papers and discusses the information in them, telling me she thinks these “will probably be good resources for you.” 

How terrifying…

Finally, Jessica and her family left the hospital at midnight, and to say her experience was disappointing would be a gigantic understatement. “My spirit [felt] more broken than ever, [I got] no medication, no follow-up appointment, never spoke to a doctor. This was a 10-hour ordeal that I had to go through all while caring for my infant that I had with me,” she said. “And that’s it. That’s what I got for telling my OB that I have PPD and I need help. I was treated like a criminal and then discharged with nothing but a stack of xeroxed printouts with phone numbers on them.” 

Despite going through this nightmare, Jessica said that her family isn’t seeking legal action.

The Mom simply wanted to share her experience on Facebook to make other women more aware of the stigma associated with postpartum depression and how the healthcare system truly failed her once she tried to seek help.

Jessica is now trying to work with the state of California to get laws passed that promote better maternal health care.

We really hope that Jessica is recovering and that no other woman has to go through the same ordeal.