Tagged With "Body Keeps the Score"
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She Strived to Be the Perfect Mom and Landed in the Psych Ward [KQED]
Lisa Abramson says that even after all she’s been through – the helicopters circling her house, the snipers on the roof, and the car ride to jail – she still wants to have a second child. Because, in the beginning, when her daughter was born, Lisa was smitten, just like the mom she’d imagined she would be. She’d look into her baby’s round, alert eyes and feel the adrenaline rush through her. She had so much energy. She was so excited. “I actually was thinking like, ‘I don’t get why other...
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Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
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The Decision that Changed My Life
Four years ago, I decided to start a conversation about the long term impact of childhood abuse. More specifically, about what happens when those abused children grow up and have children of their own. When I had become a parent, I went looking for books on this topic, and I didn’t find anything. But I knew I couldn’t be the only one who was dealing with this. And once I found one other person who was willing to write about this, I said, let’s collect these stories. The stories of these...
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The Developing Brain & Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Thanks to an explosion in scientific research now possible with imaging technologies, such as fMRI and SPECT, experts can actually see how the brain develops. This helps explain why exposure to adverse childhood experiences can so deeply influence and change a child's brain and thus their physical and emotional health and quality of life across their lifetime. The above time-lapse study was conducted over 10 years. The darker colors represent brain maturity (brain development). I have added...
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The Link Between Childhood Trauma and Sexual Abuse in Adulthood
Please check out our latest Healing Our Ghosts' podcast with ECHO's executive director and #metoo Harvey Weinstein's silence breaker Louise Godbold. Healing Our Ghosts shines light into the suffering we keep hidden. We are not alone in our struggles and when we share our pain, we lift the shame secrecy that keeps us alone and disconnected from each other and prevents us from healing. With humor and compassion, Ana Joanes interviews a wide variety of guests about their messy lives, how they...
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The prevalence and clinical correlates of adverse childhood experiences in a cross-sectional study of primary care patients with cardiometabolic disease or risk factors (BMC)
From the article: To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the incidence and clinical correlates of ACEs in primary care patients who already have cardiometabolic disease or are at elevated risk based on conventional risk factors. Open Access LINK to article Background Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with risk of poor adult health, including cardiometabolic diseases. Little is known about the correlates of ACEs for adults who have already developed...
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The Relentless School Nurse: The Text Message No Parent Wants to Get - An Active Shooter is at School
Many blog readers know that my niece Carly is a survivor of the Parkland shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. You may know that my father also survived a mass murder, and like Carly, hid in a closet until the police arrived. Almost 70 years separated the two tragedies. Our guest blogger this week is my sister Merri, Carly's mom. Merri shares her first-hand account of what happened the afternoon of February 14, 2018, when Carly sent this text, “Mom don’t freak out but we are on...
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The Rise of the Trauma-Informed Mothers
The next generation is less likely to wear predisposed shackles of trauma because as trauma-informed parents we are re-wiring the traumatically stressed DNA that was passed down to us.
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The Trauma of Having a Newborn in the NICU [theatlantic.com]
When Kelli Kelley awoke from her C-section 17 years ago, having delivered her son after just 24 weeks of pregnancy, her husband gave her a Polaroid of their baby. He was tiny, underdeveloped, eyes still fused shut, with translucent skin covered in fine hair, and lying in a sea of medical equipment and lines. To Kelley, he looked like a baby bird. Cut to her first visit to the neonatal intensive-care unit ( nicu ) to meet him: a cacophony of beeping machines, harsh lighting,...
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Therapist: Trauma Is An Experience Of The Body. And We're All Feeling It [wbur.org]
By Elissa Tosi, WBUR, May 14, 2020 As a psychotherapist, my work is all about connection. It’s about supporting my clients by cultivating an understanding of who they are and where they’ve been. But therapists are people, too, and we have our own issues. We fight with our partners, apologize to our kids for bad parenting moments, get sick, lose loved ones, the list goes on. We often have to put our stuff aside in order to focus on the client’s reality, and our ability to do that is a skill...
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Toxic Stress: Issue Brief on Family Separation and Child Detention [immigrationinitiative.harvard.edu]
By Jack P. Shonkoff, Immigration Initiative at Harvard, October 2019 Background The separation of children from their parents and their prolonged detention for an indefinite period of time raise profound concerns that transcend partisan politics and demand immediate resolution. Forcibly separating children from their parents is like setting a house on fire. Preventing rapid reunification is like blocking the first responders from doing their job. And subjecting children to prolonged...
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Trauma-Informed Care and a Therapist Saved my Life
Between 55 and 99 percent of women who attend addiction treatment and between 85 and 95 percent of women with a history of mental illness have a history of trauma. Among this trauma , the vast majority happened during childhood. Whether the trauma involves neglect, sexual assault, or dysfunction within the family, the need for trauma-informed care in both addiction treatment and in the mental health field is of great importance. When I found myself at a detox facility 1,300 miles away from...
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Trauma Mama: Little Girl Riding Shotgun in My Psyche
“I love you,” I say to my daughter. “Of course you do,” she says, I’m awesome.” She was twelve. The mother in me smiled. The girl I was shook her head inside and wondered h ow would it have been to feel both loved and lovable while a child? I do not know. I will never know. It does not matter how wonderful my present. It does not matter who I will become. I can’t change the past. The past is a country I never want my daughter to travel near or in. I am an exile, from my past, my child self.
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Uninsured Native Americans Often Lack Needed Prenatal Care [ocregister.com]
By Yesenia Amaro and Deepa Bharath, Center for Health Journalism News Collaborative, October 4, 2019 For almost two years, Sylvia Valenzuela relied on the federal Indian Health Service system to get the primary care she needed. But when she had to see an OB-GYN for her prenatal care, she was on her own. What followed, she said, was a nightmare in which she struggled to obtain and keep Medi-Cal coverage, leaving her uninsured for a critical stretch of her pregnancy. Valenzuela says she would...
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WEBINAR - NPPC's Pilot Site Case Studies: Lessons Learned from ACEs Screening Implementation
The Center for Youth Wellness' National Pediatric Practice Community on ACES (NPPC) is a co-designed community committed to collaborative learning. To promote this learning, we have been working with six pilot sites over the last year, representing practices of various sizes and service delivery settings, to implement ACEs screening and intervention. On Monday, December 2nd at 1pm PT , we will be holding a webinar to discuss the findings of these pilot site case studies. Please register...
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What if?
How about incorporating the 10 item Adverse Childhood Experiences(ACE) form into a prenatal visit . A mother's ACE score may help guide providers in determining if a woman's pregnancy is at higher or lower risk for complications. And...
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How It Feels & How We Heal: Parenting with ACEs Chat Quotes (You Tube, Database, PDFs, Links)
Parenting with ACEs is sharing inspiration, information, and expertise from our chat series in 3 formats. Parenting with ACEs: How It Feels & How We Heal Quote Collection (pdf version below as well) Quotes Database (pdf version below as well) Links to Chat Transcripts and before and after-the-chat blog posts. Thanks to everyone who showed up, who shared, and who is doing the important work that is our mission (prevent ACEs, heal trauma, build resilience). We know that work happens...
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Introducing NEW Becoming Trauma-Informed & Beyond Community
Earlier this year @Dawn Daum wrote to us when she was ready to share ACEs science with people in the organization she works in to make a case for moving towards more trauma-informed care for the benefit of the staff and those they serve. She was frustrated because almost all the training and resources she found were geared towards schools, clinical staff or to organizations working with children and families rather than ACE-impacted adults in the workplace and who are...
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Making the Good Stuff Louder: Trauma Dad, Bryon Hamel
Byron Hamel, (AKA Trauma Dad ), is a filmmaker , children's rights and men's wellness advocate. He's also a father with "ACEs through the roof," who survived child torture at the hands of a man now on death row for infanticide. Before the Father & ACEs chat started last week (see full chat transcript ), we discussed if and how to give a trigger warning. Hamel's experienced horrific trauma during childhood. He didn't want to traumatize those on the chat but wanted to be honest.
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Mental Health Care Could Get Easier for New Moms Under New California Rules (Capital Public Radio)
Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP Photo
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Mom's Mental Health and the ACEs she brings...the past matters.
May is Maternal Mental Health Awareness Month and this Sunday is Mother's Day. The day is somewhat bittersweet when I think about it...shouldn't every day be Mothers' Day, just minus the fanfare? How can we promote better mental health for moms during...
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My son was hospitalized and now he has PTSD
“Grant, do you remember when you were in the hospital?” “Yes… they came to take the blood and I turned into a werewolf.” Original Post It happened quickly. A year ago my three year old had a collarbone fracture, it became infected and within 24 hours the situation was emergent. A week long hospital stay, one month with a PICC line and two months on oral antibiotics. Finally, the labs finally came back normal. The X-Ray was clean. Gillette Children’s Hospital closed our case. But the healing...
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Need 45 Trauma-Informed Practitioners or Clinicians For Study on Using a Brain Regulation Headband-Bellabee Designed To Help Trauma Survivors Regulate Their Brains.
Need 45 Trauma-Informed Practitioners or Clinicians For Study on Using a Brain Regulation Headband-Bellabee Designed To Help Trauma Survivors Regulate Their Brains. All trauma informed practitioners who are suffering with or who work with adults or children suffering with C-PTSD, PTSD, Developmental Trauma, Depression, Anxiety, ADHD & Sleep Disorders are welcome to apply to be considered for this study. We currently have 41 applicants, and applicantions are approved on a first come first...
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No ACEs, low resilience worse than high ACE and resilience scores, study finds
What does measuring resilience tell us about pregnant women who have experienced ACEs? For one thing, it affirms that understanding how a mom-to-be weathers difficult experiences gives greater meaning to her ACE score and what it might mean for her children. That was one of the takeaways from a recent study in the Journal of Women’s Health entitled “ Adverse Childhood Experiences and Mental and Behavioral Health Conditions During Pregnancy: The Role of Resilience ,” says Dr. Carey Watson,...
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NPPC shares lessons learned and results from ACEs screening pilot sites
For Dr. Mercie Digangi, a pediatrician at Kaiser Southern California in Downey, CA, ACEs screening provided a crystal clear before-and-after in how she changed treatment plans for her pediatric patients, she explained to attendees of a December 2 webinar organized by the National Pediatric Practice Community on ACEs (NPPC) and cosponsored by ACEs Connection. Dr. Mercie Digangi One case that turned ACEs screening into a never-go-back moment for her was a three-year-old who was speech-delayed.
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Opioid-Dependent Newborns Get New Treatment: Mom Instead of Morphine [CHCF]
Aug 1, 2019, Dana G. Smith, for CHCF When babies are born dependent on opioids, typically they are whisked away from their mothers, put into the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), dosed with morphine to get them through withdrawal, and gradually weaned off the drug—a process that can take weeks. Research now suggests that this long-established standard of care may be the worst way to care for a newborn with opioid dependency, or neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). The NICU is busy, noisy,...
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Parenting, Menopause & ACEs After-the-Chat Summary: Carey Sipp
Have you talked with friends, siblings or co-workers about Parenting with ACEs while going through the change? Do you have any fascinating facts to share about how your OBGYN prepared or supported you when thrown by midlife, hormonal shifts and emotional residue from traumatic stress? Me either. And it's a shame. A lot of people parent, go through menopause, and have survived a bunch of ACEs. Conversations and information shouldn't be so hard to find. But they are. T hat's the reason we...
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Parenting, PTSD & ACES / Live Chat Event from Parenting with ACEs Series
Our next online chat event is fast approaching. All are welcome. Date: Tuesday, June 13th, 2017 (10 AM PST / 1 PM EST) Topic: Parenting, PTSD & ACEs. Guests: Dawn Daum & Joyelle Brandt are parents, writers, advocates and trauma survivors. Together, they edited the forthcoming Parenting with PTSD anthology and created an online community for parents recovering from childhood abuse. They educate mental health, human service and other professionals about the challenges and lived...
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Petaluma Health Center leads effort to link women to services
Sonoma County was one of six sites selected nationally to participate in a CityMatCH practice collaborative to prevent substance exposed pregnancies. In 2012 Rebecca Munger CNM, PHN the Sonoma County Maternal, Child, Adolescent Health Coordinator lead a broad coalition of reproductive health champions who worked across sectors and settings to develop a trio of strategies to reduce substance exposed pregnancies. The first strategy developed with CDC and WHO technical support was a bundled...
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Harvard study - Postpartum Depression symptoms - not a secret to keep to yourself
Importance of universal screening! The worst kept secret for some women because they are filled with shame or simply don't know things can and will be better! For some it's the shame they're afraid of.....this Harvard study explains why it should not be a secret. Time to get it out in the open. Sometimes just asking a mom gives permission to talk! http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/postpartum-depression-worst-kept-secret-2017020811008
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What You and Your Family Need to Know About Maternal Depression [nytimes.com]
For the first time, a national health panel has recommended a way to prevent depression during and after pregnanc y. This condition, known as perinatal depression, affects up to one in seven women and is considered the most common complication of pregnancy. The panel, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, said two types of counseling can help keep symptoms at bay. Its recommendation means that under the Affordable Care Act, such counseling must be covered by insurance with no...
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When Doctors Downplay Women’s Health Concerns [nytimes.com]
“Well, you look like you’re doing great,” my primary care physician cheerfully informed me. I stared at her from the examination table in disbelief. I had just told her that I wasn’t enjoying being with my children and was having trouble doing what needed to be done at work and at home. As a health journalist, I had interviewed dozens of physicians and psychologists. I knew that being unable to live one’s life was the big red flag signaling it was time to get help. I was asking for help. But...
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When pregnant women who abuse opioids are treated like criminals, their babies suffer (latimes.com)
Laws that punish women who abuse drugs during a pregnancy are often billed as a way to protect unborn babies from addiction. But new research finds they have the opposite effect: After states enact laws treating pregnant drug users as unfit mothers or criminals, the number of newborns who contend with drug withdrawal jumps significantly. The new findings suggest that laws that criminalize a mother’s drug use during pregnancy or threaten to remove newborns from their mothers’ care discourage...
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Why I'm Passionate About ACEs Awareness
When I was 42, I landed on my butt so hard I couldn’t imagine how it had happened. I found out that the beliefs and relationships I had built my life on and around were all lies, and my world and worldview came crashing down around me. From that place of desolation, at what was rock bottom for me, I had to figure out what was true and not true, what was right and wrong for me, who I was – not who I had become to be acceptable to others. I needed to figure out who was with me and to what...
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Why Intentionally Building Empathy Is More Important Now Than Ever (kqed.org)
Those in helping professions like teaching, social work, or medicine can buffer themselves from burnout and “compassion fatigue” with self-care strategies, including meditation and social support . A study of nurses in acute mental health settings found staff support groups helped buffer the nurses, but only if they were structured to minimize negative communication and focused on talking about challenges in constructive ways. English Professor Cris Beam also studies empathy and wrote a book...
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Why We Suck (at Self-Soothing & Self-Care): Dr. Dawn O'Malley
Without yoga and coffee, I'm kind of a jerk. These are my personal "puppy uppers and doggie downers" and prevent me from being cranky, quick to cry, and ready for conflict. Coffee and calming make life more manageable. Humans even seem tolerable. Without them I might veer into hating humans for being so needy which is not a great trait for a parent, partner or a professional. Or a self. My partner says coffee and exercise are acts of kindness, service as promote public safety. In other...
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Beyond the ACE score: Examining relationships between timing of developmental adversity, relational health and developmental outcomes in children [Science Direct]
Archives of Psychiatric Nursing Volume 33, Issue 3 , June 2019, Pages 238-247 Erin P. Hambrick , Thomas W. Brawner , Bruce D. Perry, K ristie Brandt, Christine Hofmeister , Jen O. Collins The association between developmental adversity and children's functioning is complex, particularly given the multifaceted nature of adverse experiences. The association between the timing of experience and outcomes is underresearched and clinically under-appreciated. We examine how the timing of both...
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Beyond the ACE score: Examining relationships between timing of developmental adversity, relational health and developmental outcomes in children (www.sciencedirect.com)
Highlights excerpted on Science Direct about a new study by Erin P.Hambrick, Thomas W.Brawner, BruceD. Perry, KristieBrandt, Christine Hofmeister, and Jen O.Collins published in the Archives of Psychiatric Nursing. Link to Science Direct about a new study by Erin P.Hambrick, Thomas W.Brawner, BruceD. Perry, KristieBrandt, Christine Hofmeister, and Jen O.Collins published in the Archives of Psychiatric Nursing.
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Breastfeeding and COVID-19 Guidance Updated (California WIC Association)
The CDC guidelines titled " Interim Considerations for Infection Prevention and Control of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Inpatient Obstetric Healthcare Settings " have been updated to clarify considerations related to visitors and essential support persons to pregnant women who have known or suspected COVID-19 infection; prioritized testing of pregnant women with suspected COVID-19 at admission or who develop symptoms of COVID-19 during admission; testing of infants with suspected...
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CA announces robust perinatal depression prevention for Medi-Cal recipients
Melinda Coates experienced a tumultuous pregnancy. “I was really mentally upset literally from day one (of the pregnancy),” she says. (Melinda Coates is a pseudonym. To protect her and her children’s privacy and safety, we are not using her real name.) Coates had hoped to get counseling last October, when she was seven months pregnant. That’s when she enrolled in the state’s Medi-Cal program, shortly after she and her abusive husband moved to California, “but nobody was able to get me in...
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California unveils ACEs Aware initiative to screen for trauma
Will screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in California be mandatory? No, but it’s recommended. Will there be training for physicians and staff on how to screen? Yes. Who will be reimbursed for screening patients in California? Physicians who serve patients in the state’s Medi-Cal program — for now. For more answers to these and other questions that surfaced during a Dec. 4 webinar introducing Californians to a new statewide initiative, read on. Come January 1, California will...
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Call for Abstracts for NCHDV 2020 conference
The National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence (NCHDV) seeks submissions that highlight research reports, practice innovations, advocacy initiatives, educational advances, and/or community programs that address one or more aspects related to domestic/sexual violence, other forms of violence, and health. The Call for Abstracts (CFA) invites leaders working in the fields of health and domestic/sexual violence to present their work at the 2020 Conference. Submission Deadline: Monday,...
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Can Trained, Paid Peer Support Help New York City Keep Foster Parents? [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Megan Conn, The Chronicle of Social Change, December 2, 2019 When Roxanne Williams became a foster parent four years ago, she started in the deep end of the parenting pool. New York City child welfare workers brought her a boy with limited English on a Friday afternoon and left after confirming her home was safe, leaving Williams to muddle through their first days together on her own. “It was rough – you weren’t getting the calls back [from her foster care agency] as fast as you wanted...
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CMS Issue Brief: Improving Access to Maternal Health Care in Rural Communities
In an ideal maternal health system, all women would have access to comprehensive, seamless medical care with links to behavioral, economic, and social supports. Additionally, they would be engaged with this system before, during, and after pregnancy. Across the United States, many women are not receiving care in this ideal system, and women in rural communities face unique challenges that make it harder for them to reach this ideal or any care at all in some cases. Because maternal health...
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Comics Shed Light On The 'Scary Thoughts' That Can Come With Motherhood [HuffPost]
Maternal mental health expert Karen Kleiman is tackling the stigma of postpartum depression and anxiety, one comic at a time. Kleiman has a background in psychology and social work and is the founder of The Postpartum Stress Center, an institution based in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, that’s provided support to pregnant and postpartum women for 30 years. Collaborating with illustrator Molly McIntyre , Kleiman has released comics inspired by submissions to the center’s #speakthesecret campaign ,...
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Commentary: Staying calm at a time of crisis (San Antonio Express News)
By Stephanie McCain, March 26, 2020, San Antonio Express News If you asked me before this coronavirus crisis whether I was a “trauma survivor,” I would have replied with confidence that I was not. My family experienced hardship during our months of displacement following Hurricane Ike in 2008, but we were surrounded with abundant love from supportive family, friends and generous strangers. We came through the experience with no lasting scars. Within a year of the storm, we owned a home and...
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Deeper than the Deepest Well
We now know that babies DO feel pain, and in fact, they are even more sensitive to it than adults. The study of baby’s experiences in utero and the first two years of life have led to the rise of early developmental trauma as a reality today, especially with the acceptance of implicit memory and that the body remembers.
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Doulas & Covid-19: A toolkit for doulas (DONA International)
Please the attached toolkit for more information. From the toolkit: Best practices when working with clients Given how new this virus is, we currently have very little data on how it might affect pregnant people and newborns. Guidelines from the CDC outline recommendations for how to support pregnant and laboring people with Coronavirus. (3) There is currently no evidence that the virus is spread from mother to baby in utero, or that it is transmitted in human milk. (4)
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Epigenetics in a Minute! YouTube video
Do you keep hearing the term epigenetics and know it has something to do with DNA, but you're not sure how they connect? Check out this 2.4 minute video! This fast-paced video will take you one step closer to understanding epigenetics! Once upon a time in the world of genetics, two identical twins were born. The two baby boys were named Jim and Tim Van Horn. .... Link to video
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Family First Scholarships for 21st Annual Families and Fathers Conference
21st Annual Families and Fathers National Conference February 24-27, 2020 Hilton Los Angeles Airport 5711 West Century Boulevard Los Angeles, California 90045 I am honored to announce The Family First Scholarship supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation as a Title Sponsor and State of California First 5 as a Co-Sponsor for the 21 st Annual Families and Fathers Conference, Next Level 2020! the terms "putting family first" and "it takes a village to raise a child" parallels with why we have...